Colored Concrete Works Award 2015
At the end of February, specialty chemicals company Lanxess held a ceremony in Berlin to present its second Colored Concrete Works Award to an architect who has set new standards in the use of colored concrete. This year’s award went to Japanese architect Akihisa Hirata for his design of the Alp apartment complex in Akabane-Nishi, Tokyo, Japan. The desired charcoal shade was provided by Bayferrox 4330/3 iron oxide black pigment; a total of 425 m3 of colored concrete were used in this project.
In harmony with nature
The international jury selected the Alp proj-ect from among the entries because of its impressive selection of color, functionality and significance.
Jörg Hellwig, Senior Vice President of the Lanxess Inorganic Pigments business unit, presented the award, designed in colored concrete, at the specialty chemicals company’s Berlin office. “Our Colored Concrete Works initiative is directed at architects and planners, and aims to sharpen their focus on the aesthetic qualities of concrete. The charcoal-colored building in Japan, the winner of our award this year, is a prime example of how perfectly concrete can be adapted to the landscape and how it can offer a new form of expression as a building material,” Hellwig said in his laudatory speech.
Second place this year was awarded to Minsuk Cho, owner of Mass Studies Architects, for the design of the corporate headquarters of Daum Kakao, an IT company in South Korea.
