First Vitro 2007 Internal Design Competition For Sustainable Development

• Vitro and the Universidad Iberoamericana join efforts to develop environmentally responsible professionals

• The winners will travel to England to view at first hand building structures that are designed for minimal energy  consumption

With the support of Vitro and the end objective of encourage sustainability in design projects developed within the faculty of architecture and design at the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA), today this university announced the "First Vitro 2007 Internal Design Competition For Sustainable Development".

The competition envisions the development of an ecological friendly space within the UIA facilities, conceived for long term sustainability by using renewable energy technologies that lead to a minimum of energy usage (Zero Energy Building).

Jaime Guzmán, Vice President for the Float Glass Business Unit of Vitro, commented that the idea is to build momentum in the use of glass technology in an innovative and original form.
He added "both the UIA´s and Vitro´s mutual vision is to promote awareness in the use of modern technologies and sustainable design concepts, applied to architectural structures, by sensitizing the student body with these concepts in their development of future projects within their professional field". Guzmán explained that the idea is to develop, through cross-pollination of proposed projects a sustainable awareness in socio-economic and cultural circles for using modern materials technology across all professional disciplines.

"Therefore the participating projects must be drawn up by students from at least two differing career fields, working in multidisciplinary teams comprised of up to four students", he stated.

Alejandro Gebara, Float Glass Marketing Manager, commented that during the semester Vitro will offer sessions related to the use and applications of glass, characteristics and properties of each one of the different products that the Company manufactures and processes, bringing together the design, functionality and sustainability, as well as workshops to the students and professors during the semester for the development of the projects.

"This project is the prelude to open a permanent space in the Universidad Iberoamericana, such as a professorship focused to the students", stated Gebara.

The competition is open to undergraduate students of architecture, design (industrial and graphic) and engineering at the UIA; the projects must be original and developed by teams of up to four students from different career disciplines with the objective of showing the applications of the concepts of sustainability across diverse fields.

The evaluation commission comprised of multidisciplinary teams that include members of academia from UIA, experts on the subject as well as executives from Vitro will chose the best projects using the following criteria:

• Architectural design: the project must be novel in one or more aspects related to the implementation of eco-techniques incorporated into the project.

• Technologies application: the project will be graded on the immediate use of and potential use of technologies and materials for the "envelopment" of the structure for the purpose of optimizing energy efficiency.

• Presentation: how the project is presented, focusing on: documentation, displays and graphics.

The evaluation commission is comprised of Jaime Guzmán, Vice President for the Float Glass Business Unit, Alejandro Leal, Float Glass Commercial Manager and Alejandro Gebara, Float Glass Marketing Manager on behalf of Vitro; José Luis Cortés, from the Universidad Iberoamericana, Guillermo Guzmán from the University of Nottingham; Arturo Echeverría from the Association of Builders for Energy Conservation in Construction and Jorge Wolpert from the Mexican Commission on Energy Savings.

The winners of the competition will be rewarded with an all expense trip to the University of Nottingham, England with a previously programmed guided tour of "Zero Energy" buildings. Second place winners will be awarded $15,000.00 MP and third place $10,000.00 MP. The deadline for delivery of entries will be November 12, 2007 and the awards ceremony will be on November 29.

Vitro reaffirms its embracement of social responsibility issues with this project as it adds to the many other Vitro initiatives to strengthen the professional development of young university students, such as: the creation of the "Cátedra Vitro" for architectural students at the Tecnológico de Monterrey as well participating in diverse university subjects specialized in Industrial Design at the Centro de Estudios Superiores de Diseño de Monterrey (CEDIM).