House of the Future Sustainability Award winners - Katarina Jägrová, Jakub Ürge, Jakub Demčák and Lucia Medlenová

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to the Sustainability Award winners of our "House of the Future" competition –  Katarina Jägrová, Jakub Ürge, Jakub Demčák and Lucia Medlenová!

Katarina Jägrová, Jakub Ürge, Jakub Demčák and Lucia Medlenová

Please tell us about your company (when it was founded, where it is based, how many employees, etc) Alternatively, if you do not have a company, please give us some insights on your own professional/academia background.

GFI is an architectural, interior and engineering design practice founded more than 25 years ago in Bratislava, Slovakia. The main driving force behind creation of our family atmosphere in our company is a multispectral collaboration of over 70 colleagues in mutual trust and honesty.

Brief information about the projects that you/your company have been involved with. For instance, what scale have you focused on/preferred, any significant projects where the company/ individuals have been Involved?

We possess over two decades of experience through variety of projects ranging from iconic interiors to delivery of large-scale international city forming urban projects mainly in Slovakia but also in multinational evironment both home and abroad, such as in China or UAE. We believe in quality urban environment that serves as ramification for society, generation of values, engine for the economy as well as a heart of our culture.

Why do you participate in architecture competitions?

We believe in endless professional development in a constantly changing world in order to keep pace with the latest trends. Competitions in general provide great basis for research in areas where conventional commercial architecture does not leave enough room for such endeavours in this scale.

What advice would you give to individuals who struggle to decide whether it would be beneficial for them to participate in architecture competitions?

Architectural competitions have the ability to broaden our senses, knowledge pool and provide a great base for architect’s self development. Architects usually learn through experience, through making and creating things rather than learning them from books. Therefore, architectural competitions have not only been a tool for reaching a wider audience, to make money, recently their impact is quite the contrary, competitions exist to let us improve, provide ability to look at contemporary issues from wider perspective and reflect on difficult tasks society faces nowadays. Especially for those who simply cannot stand still.