Congratulations are in order for the winners of the 2014 GenK competition. Short for Generation Kingspan, GenK is a student architectural design competition created and sponsored by Kingspan Insulated Panels. This online-based competition is designed to offer design students the opportunity to showcase their talents and gain industry recognition, along with peer and mentor feedback based on their project entries.

GenK judge, Lira Luis AIA RIBA LEED AP BD+C, expressed her appreciation of the entrants’ work. “This year, I particularly noticed the entries’ marked sophistication, through the execution of ideas rendered in the presentation drawings. They are raising the bar on the possibilities of insulated metal panels as an innovative and ecological building material in their designs. The Architecture & Design community showed progressive interest in the Generation Kingspan Student Architectural Design Competition as there are more entries than in any prior year. This tells me the competition is filling a creative need among our future architects and designers.”

The competition offers two ways to win. The first is by a juried vote from contest judges who are industry leaders. The second is through online voting via KINetic, the premiere social media network for architectural design professionals, including students.                                                        GenK     

The 2014 GenK juried winners are:

·First place: Hayley Kastelein, “Capturing Space,” Architecture Student from the University of Queensland

·Second place: Quoc Anh Ho, “Calgary Urban Beehive Complex,” Masters Student at the University of Queensland

·Third place: Tanner Allred, “A New Paradigm in Urban Agriculture,” Architecture Student at Dalhousie University

The 2014 GenK social media winners are:

·First place: Yi-Lu WU, “Erlton Calgary Urban Complex,” Bachelors Student at the University of Queensland

·Second place: Mehrad Hasani, “Calgary Complex,” Masters Student at Imam Reza International University

Each year GenK’s focus features a flagship Kingspan product. For GenK 2014, design students were tasked with concentrating on KarrierPanel Barrier Wall Systems and KingZip Roofing Panels. Their project entries had to demonstrate how these insulated metal panels (IMPs) can be integrated into the design of an urban, mixed-use building. Because green building and sustainable design are a big part of Kingspan’s vision and commitment, entrants were challenged to propose high performance building envelope solutions that rely on the performance characteristics of a variety of insulated metal panel types. This supports Kingspan’s hope that the student contestants of today will be tomorrow’s long-term contributors to the Path to Net Zero.