GROHE announces winner of this year’s Water Research Prize

GROHE, a bathroom and kitchen solutions brand, has announced the winner of the Water Research Prize. The winning initiative, “Recycle Build Brazil” convinced the jury, which included Paul Flowers, Chief Design Officer LIXIL, with their proposed sustainable architectural solutions for a school in the Brazilian Sao? Jose? dos Campos area.

The project uses recycled materials and implements intelligent rainwater harvesting systems to not only improve the lives of schoolchildren, but raise awareness of their interaction with water. Starting with the school building as a pilot project, there is also a longer-term proposal for the enhancement of the local 400 low-income housing units.

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The official presentation of the prize will take place during WAF on December 6th in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

“The quality of this year’s entries was phenomenal, but this one specific project caught our imagination due to the educational approach. The project not only builds a school but also takes young people on a journey to understand the relevance of water as a local source and motivates them to interact mindfully with this limited resource.

The concept starts as a pilot project and from there will be rolled-out to more than 400 low-cost houses in the area. This is an amazing opportunity to make a tangible difference and it reflects perfectly GROHE’s brand ethos,” says Paul Flowers, Chief Design Officer of GROHE’s parent company LIXIL.

“We are delighted with the results of this year’s prize. The winner emerged from a very strong field, showing the commitment of architects across the world to find new ways of using, conserving and recycling the incredible resource that is water. We look forward to meeting the winning team in Amsterdam this December, at World Architecture Festival 2019,” says Paul Finch, Programme Director, WAF.

Maria Kuzma, founder “Recycle Build Brazil”, comments: “We’re delighted to have been awarded with such a prize for our work on ‘Recycle Build Brazil’. We are looking forward to taking next steps to improving the collective awareness of water use as well as realising environmentally friendly and decentralised solutions to waste water issues in the urban environments."