Living Steel today divulged the 12 finalist architect teams who will submit concepts for sustainable steel housing at Cherepovets in Russia. Selected from 246 completed submissions from architects in 52 countries expressing interest to compete, the finalist teams are:

The 3rd International Architecture Competition originally was to include ten teams; however the Selection Committee unanimously decided to increase the number of finalist teams.

According to the Competition Brief, the finalists are charged with developing three to five housing styles of approximately 120 m2 each based on a single construction technology. The extreme challenge in this competition is to design the homes to be highly energy efficient and to minimize climate change emissions through the life cycle of the buildings, within a USD 120,000 construction budget. The Brief suggests energy consumption of 100 kWh/a per meter square this in Cherepovets where temperatures swing from summer highs of +34o C to winter lows of -49 o C. The building site will eventually be the location of a community of up to 500 homes developed by Living Steel member steel company SeverStal for its employees.

The twelve short listed teams were given the project brief and one month to put together their ideas for efficient, sustainable housing that fits the location specifications. These teams will travel to Helsinki, Finland, where they will present their concepts to the competition's Jury on June 26th to 27th 2008.

Mr Scott Chubbs director of Living Steel Program said that "These finalist architects represent a wealth of creative minds in sustainable design that expressed interest in this competition. Given the quality of the submissions and the experiences each team has to offer, it was decided to expand the competition by two teams."