The Omrania | CSBE Student Award for Architectural Design 2017 Tenth Cycle Announcement
View the 2017 Tenth Announcement Poster.
2017 Tenth Cycle Announcement
Introduction
Omrania and Associates (O&A) and the Center for the Study of the Built Environment (CSBE) are happy to announce the 2017 tenth cycle of the Omrania l CSBE Student Award for Architectural Design.
The Award is intended to honor distinguished architectural graduation projects by students from universities throughout the Arab World.
Eligibility
Students who have completed their Bachelor's degree in architecture or architectural engineering during the 2016 – 2017 academic year from universities in countries belonging to the Arab League are eligible to submit their architectural graduation projects for the Award. The Award is open to all design approaches to architecture.
The Award’s total prize money is USD 10,000. It will be at the discretion of the Award jury to decide on the number of winners and on the distribution of the prize money among them. For the 2016 Award cycle, the Award jury selected four winning projects, and five honourable mention project.
Registration
All participants may register online through the Award website www.omraniacsbeaward.org by creating an account with a user name and password, and filling and completing the online Submission Form. The Submission Form will be made available online for participants on June 20, 2017
Submission
Submissions must consist of the student’s submission for the final year graduation project. No additional work may be done to the project except for re-formatting it to match the following required specifications.
Submissions must consist of:
Abstract of no more than 100 words
All participants must provide a clear and concise statement of no more than 100 words describing their project. The statement must be typed and filled in the assigned box online at the Award website. The statement may be adapted from a text already developed for the graduation project. Abstracts that exceed 100 words in length will not be accepted.
One digital portrait sheet (file format: JPG; sheet Size: A0 (841x 1189 mm); file resolution: 150 dpi; file size: under 10MB)
- No additional sheets will be accepted.
- The digital sheet must be anonymous and shall not display the name of the participant, the participant’s university, or any other identifying marks.
- Since the participants will not be able to present their work in person to the jury members, it is permitted – though not required – to add a few short notes onto the sheet to explain significant aspects of the design. Submitting a digital sheet with a clear and simple presentation is highly encouraged.
- Participants should keep an empty white-strip (50x 841 mm) without images, drawings, or notes at the bottom of the submitted sheet as shown in the template below.
Formal Certificate of Graduation
All participants shall provide a copy of a formal document that certifies their completion of a Bachelor’s degree in architecture or architectural engineering during the 2016 – 2017 academic year. The certificate must be submitted along with the abstract paragraph, the drawing sheet, and the submission form. The certificate may be any university-issued formal document that verifies the participant’s graduation. It must be submitted / uploaded in JPG or PDF format.
Video Submission
Submitting a video about one’s project is optional. In case a video is submitted, it may not be more than one minute in length. The video will not be accepted in lieu of the drawing submission, and it should not reveal the identity of the applicant, the applicant’s instructor, or the applicant’s university. Otherwise, the video will be excluded from the applicant’s submission.- Since the participants will not be able to present their work in person to the jury members, it is permitted – though not required – to add a few short notes onto the sheet to explain significant aspects of the design. Submitting a digital sheet with a clear and simple presentation is highly encouraged.
- Participants should keep an empty white-strip (50 x 841 mm) without images, drawings, or notes at the bottom of the submitted sheet as shown in the template below.
All submissions must be uploaded to the Award website between June 20, 2017 and August 25, 2017.
Applicants will receive a confirmation email within three business days of the successful receipt of the submission material.
The names of the participants, as well as any other identifying details, will remain hidden from the jury members until after the jury has made its final decision.
All the submission items mentioned above may be provided in either Arabic or English.
Disqualification
The Award team fully reserves the right to disqualify participants for any reason it sees fit. For example, if: i) participants do not meet the eligibility criteria for participation in the competition; ii) participants communicate with the competition organizers or jurors in an attempt to influence the judgment of competition entries; iii) entries do not satisfy any of the above-mentioned requirements for submission.
More details on the eligibility and disqualification, as well as the registration and submission process are available on the FAQ section.
Evaluation
An independent three-member jury will review the entries and select the winners.
The jury will evaluate the submissions on their stand-alone merit. In doing so, issues such as clarity of presentation, creativity, design excellence, social responsiveness, function and program, etc. will be taken into account.
The jury’s decision will be final, and the jury has the right to decide on the number of winners and on the distribution of the prize money among them.
Jury members of the Award’s 2017 tenth cycle
Sahel Al Hiyari
Sahel Al Hiyari is the principal architect at Sahel Al Hiyari and Partners in Amman. He holds Bachelor's degrees in both Architecture and the Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, as well as a Master's of Architecture in Urban Design from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Al Hiyari in addition undertook post-graduate studies at the School of Architecture at the University of Venice, where he also taught from 1993 to 1995. He also taught at Harvard and at the American University in Beirut.
In 2002, Al Hiyari was chosen as the first architect to participate in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative as a protégé of Álvaro Siza in Portugal. His architectural work has been published in a number of Jordanian and international architectural publications, and has been exhibited in Jordan, Lebanon, Italy, and the United States. Al Hiyari is also a painter, and exhibitions of his work have been mounted in Jordan, Lebanon, and Italy.
Al Hiyari had served on the first jury of the Omrania | CSBE Student Award for Architectural Design in 2008. He also was a jury member of the 2007 tenth cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, as well as the 2012 first cycle of the Abdullatif Al Fozan Award for Mosque Architecture.
Hanif Kara
Hanif Kara is a structural engineer, and is the design director and co-founder of AKT II in London. He is also a Professor in Practice of Architectural Technology at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and has taught at various architectural schools in Britain, Europe, and the United States.
His constructed work is recognized as being "design led" and intrinsically linked with applied research and education. This has allowed him to work on award-winning pioneering projects with leading architects and clients.
Kara’s career extends beyond the structural engineering disciplines and led to him receiving the UK ACE Engineering Ambassador Award in 2011. He also has published widely on interdisciplinary design.
Kara is a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Institute of Civil Engineers, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Structural Engineering, and the Royal Society of Arts. He is also on the board of trustees of the Architecture Foundation.
Kara had served as a jury member of the fourth cycle of the Omrania | CSBE Student Award for Architectural Design in 2011. He also was a jury member of the 2004 ninth cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and a Steering Committee member of its 2016 thirteenth cycle.
The participation of Hanif Kara in the jury of the Omrania | CSBE Student Award is kindly supported by the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
Han Tümertekin
Han Tümertekin is the principal architect and founder of Mimarlar ve Han Tümertekin in Istanbul, and Atelier Han Tümertekin in Strasbourg. He studied architecture at Istanbul Technical University, and completed his graduate studies in historic preservation at the University of Istanbul.
His work includes residential, commercial, and institutional projects, primarily in Turkey, as well as in The Netherlands, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, China, Mongolia, and Kenya. In addition to his built work, he has taught architecture at universities including Harvard, Istanbul Technical University, and the École d'Architecture in Strasbourg. Tümertekin’s work also has been widely published in international architectural journals.
Tumertekin had served as a jury member of the first cycle of the Omrania | CSBE Student Award for Architectural Design in 2011. He also was a jury member of the 2007 tenth cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and a Steering Committee member of its 2010 and 2013 eleventh and twelfth cycles.
Award and Exhibition
The winning projects will be declared at an Award ceremony. The location and date of the ceremony will be announced at a later date. The winning projects and a selection of submissions will be exhibited immediately after the Award ceremony and for a few days following it. The winning projects will also be published on the Award website and on the Award’s dedicated social media channels.
The Award will cover travel and accommodation expenses for winners from outside the country where the ceremony will be held. Should any of the winning projects be the product of a group effort, the Award will cover the expenses of one representative from the group. The Award ceremonies so far have been held in Amman, Manama, Beirut, and Sharjah.
The Award will also cover travel and accommodation expenses for the instructors who supervised the winning projects from the countries of the universities where they taught during the relevant year of the Award cycle to where the ceremony is held. Should any of the winning projects have more than one supervising instructor, the Award will cover the expenses of one instructor.
Inquiries and Updates
For additional inquiries, please call CSBE at (962) (6) 461-5297 or send an email to info@omraniacsbeaward.org. All developments regarding the Award will be posted on the Award web site and on the Award’s dedicated social media channels:
Facebook: Omrania.CSBE.Student.Award
If you wish to be informed of any updates on the Award, please provide us with your email address.
Note: Detailed information on the Award’s previous eight cycles (including winning projects, biographies of jury members, and jury reports) are available on the CSBE website (www.csbe.org) and on the Award website (www.omraniacsbeaward.org). All submitted projects for the 2010 and 2011 cycles of the Award may be viewed on the Award's Facebook page. All projects submitted for the 2012 - 2015 cycles of the Award may be viewed on the Award website.