January 21st 2021

And the Winners of our VE User of the Year Competition are…

And the Winners of our VE User of the Year Competition are…

Launched in September 2020, we’re pleased to announce that we have selected the prize winners for our brand-new competition: VE User of the Year. The competition sought to find the most innovative use of the VE on a project, either commercial or academic, and we’re delighted that it’s achieved just that.

With so many fantastic entries it was tough to find just one winner, so after careful deliberation our judges selected the top ten to receive prizes:

Global Winner – Mike Radio, Ballinger
Academic Global Winner – Osama Hasan, San Francisco State University
North American Winner – Miles Martschink, RMF
European Winner – Pedro Marques, Boydens
Runners-Up – Cory Duggin & Anthony Scaccia, TLC; Harry Sharples, AECOM; and Quynh Xuan Tran, Waterford Institute of Technology
Awards of Merit - Alexander Tansowny, Dialog and Simona Vasinton, Cundall

Huge congratulations to our global winner, Mike Radio from Ballinger who will receive the top prize of $1,000. Mike’s entry focussed on a 10.3 million SF Philadelphia hospital project where he used the VE to demonstrate energy, carbon and thermal load projections for the next 30 years. He used the ModelIT application to rapidly model the existing 6 million SF campus as a representative campus-wide Digital Twin. 

“The analytical range of Mike’s submission impressed us all; from simple curtain-wall assessments, to sizing chilled beams and onto integrating on-site cogeneration with central plants; all coupled with the IESVE VistaPro graphics demonstrated the highest level of performance modeling excellence. A well-deserved winner.”
Liam Buckley, IES Vice-President North America

Congratulations also to our global academic winner, Osama Hasan, Graduate Student in Energy Systems from San Francisco State University. Osama will receive a prize of $500. His entry focussed on a Rare Document Storage and Archives Facility in Mumbai, India, where he used the VE to perform a comprehensive energy simulation. Two models were produced for this project: a baseline model that adheres to ASHRAE 90.1 standards, and a proposed model which includes energy conservation and on-site renewable energy measures. Energy conservation measures focused mainly on reducing cooling loads and optimizing the operating parameters of the cooling equipment.         

We’d also like to congratulate our regional winners, Miles Martschink of RMF for North America and Pedro Marques of Boydens Engineering for Europe, who will also receive prizes of $500 each. Miles’ entry focussed on his CFD Analysis of the Kirkland Correctional Institution, whilst Pedro’s entry highlights how the VE facilitates a BIM culture at Boydens Engineering.

Our congratulations also goes to those awarded runners-up and merit prizes. The standard of entries was extremely high and we thank everyone who took the time to enter.

We will be publishing case studies on all our prize winners over the coming weeks and months, so watch this space to read all about their innovative uses of the VE.

Entries for this years’ awards will open in September so be sure to mark it in your calendar, and head over to www.iesve.com/ve-user-award to find out what’s involved.