Terreform ONE wins the Zumtobel Group Award

Co-Founders Mitchell Joachim and Maria Aiolova awarded EUR 60,000


At a meeting at Roden Crater, Arizona (USA) in February, an international jury selected this year's winners of the Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability and Humanity. The EUR 60,000 award in the "Research & Initiative" category went to the non-profit design group Terreform ONE, jointly founded by Mitchell Joachim and Maria Aiolova, for the research project "New York City Resource & Mobility", a visionary plan for New York City that converts waste to buildings and reinvents the city transit system.


Terreform ONE is a unique laboratory for scientists, artists, architects, students, and individuals of all backgrounds to explore and advance the larger framework of green design. The group develops innovative solutions and technologies for local sustainability in energy, transportation, infrastructure, buildings, waste treatment, food, water, and media spaces. The jury selected Terreform ONE based on the group’s integrated approach: "This project is a rich source of interesting ideas of real substance. The research team is not afraid to think in whole new directions and presents a range of visionary potential approaches that are already acting as catalysts in the urban development debate."


The winners were selected by interdisciplinary and international jury of leading architects from different parts of the world, an engineer, a representative of the UN, and the CEO of the Zumtobel Group, including:

Stefan Behnisch, (Chairman) Architect / Behnisch Architects, Stuttgart (Germany)
Yung Ho Chang, Architect, Head of Department of Architecture / Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (USA)
Brian Cody, Engineer, Chair of the Institute for Buildings and Energy, Graz University of Technology (Austria)
Colin Fournier, Architect / University College London (UK)
Andreas Ludwig, CEO Zumtobel Group, Dornbirn (Austria)
Enrique Norten, Architect / TEN Arquitectos, Mexico City and New York (Mexico, USA)
Anna Tibaijuka, General and Executive Director / UN Habitat, Nairobi (Kenya)


“I am delighted that, in their selection this year, the jury has sent out a clear signal that smaller projects which adopt innovative approaches can also prove an important source of inspiration. We need to look beyond our current needs and see the challenges of the future in their full context, as is reflected in the winning project in the "Research & Innovation" category," explained Zumtobel Group CEO and jury member Andreas Ludwig.

The winner in the category “Built Environment” was HARMONIA 57 by Triptyque. In the category "Research & Initiative", honorable mentions went to a rural student project at the University of Talca in Chile; a cross-border exchange programme and symposium "Political Equator II" (Estudio Teddy Cruz) involving the USA and Mexico; a highly poetical idea for an office and studio building in Columbia (Husos Architects); and a master plan for a wind park in the North Sea (OMA, Office for Metropolitan Architecture) that aims to meet the entire electricity needs of the Netherlands.

The 2010 Zumtobel Group Awards will be presented to the winners at a gala evening in Bregenz, Austria, on Thursday, September 9, 2010.