Shaw Contract believes that even one small thing can make a big impact. In consideration of being a responsible manufacturer, everything matters: evaluating each component to ensure the health and safety of this generation, and generations to come is critical.

In alignment with Shaw Contract’s commitment to Cradle to Cradle principles, and protecting our future environment, we teamed up with the Manchester School of Architecture (MSA) to give the inaugural Shaw Contract Award for Material Health. 

The top five shortlisted students are exhibiting their projects at Shaw Contract’s London Showroom, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1 for a month, from August 1st 2019. Make your way down to Shaw Contract’s showroom to see the models and sketches and thinking behind these unconventional, innovative projects.

New talent, challenging convention

Supporting talented and emerging architects, as well as challenging the architectural and design community as a whole, the Award celebrates a responsible attitude to materials including construction, specification or fit-out. BA3 (undergraduate) and MArch (postgraduate) students were asked to submit projects that considered a Circular Economy approach or Cradle to Cradle principles.

Five projects were shortlisted amongst a total of twelve submissions and the winner was announced at the MSA degree show on June 7th, 2019 by David Smith, Divisional Vice President EMEA at Shaw Contract. 

David commented: “It was a privilege to present this Award to students at the Manchester School of Architecture degree show. For the inaugural Shaw Contract Award for Material Health, Undergraduate and Postgraduate students were invited to submit projects that consider the use of creative design and revolutionary materials to develop innovative building techniques. The submissions were amazing.”

WINNER: Reap What You Sow by Tamsyn Rootsey

The winning project’s title infers that what you sow into this earth, you will get back. With a keen love for the multitude of architectural design and heritage the world has to offer, Tamsyn describes her feelings as being in an exciting and scary time to revise the way architects assemble inhabitable designs, down to the very core of production, to the point where they need to sacrifice their own desires and comforts to help the earth recover. 

Her project questions and challenges the position of humans and their relationship towards architecture and nature, forming a radical reinterpretation of inhabitable space constructed from fungi. It aims to reteach humanity the value of the unconventional, and the key role that fungi plays in helping to regenerate the environment, at a microscopic level.

Tamsyn was named the winner for pushing the boundaries of our current thinking on this topic and challenging convention, and the incredible attention to detail and interpretation in her project.