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Just weeks after winning a public vote, a spinout from Heriot-Watt University is celebrating again after its product was awarded Sustainable Design of the Year in the 2022 Dezeen Awards.
The K-Briq, a brick made from more than 90% recycled construction and demolition waste material, is the result of more than a decade of research into sustainable building materials and practices by Kenoteq co-founders Professor Gabriela Medero and Dr Sam Chapman.
Kenoteq, makers of the K-Briq, were initially scored by a panel of eight leading sustainability industry professionals before the winners were decided by a master jury including sustainable designer and author, Babette Porcelijn, Dodds & Shute co-founder Nick Shute and co-founder of Cornish design company Green&Blue, Gavin Christman.
The product also won the public vote for Sustainable Design of the Year last month. An incredible 5,400 entries representing 90 countries entered the 2022 Dezeen Awards which honour the best in the industry across categories including architecture, interiors, design and sustainability. Kenoteq won one of just three sustainability categories.
On their reasons for selecting the K-Briq for the top award, the master jury said: “K-Briq is an opportunity to have an impact at scale, a thorn in the side of an industry that is largely static and crying out for disruptors."
Professor Medero, Associate Principal for Enterprise at Heriot-Watt University and co-founder of Kenoteq, said: “The Dezeen Awards are the industry’s Oscars and we are extremely proud to have been selected by such an illustrious master jury.
We believe, as the judges recognised, that the K-Briq can be a game changer in the construction industry and this award is a real vote of confidence in what we’re doing as we prepare to roll out commercial production from our new facility just outside Edinburgh. K-Briq is now being specified into a variety of innovative sustainable build projects for delivery in 2023 and 2024."
The K-Briq won the STEM Research Project of the Year at the prestigious Times Higher Education Awards 2020. Kenoteq also won a Scottish Environment Business Networks 2022 VIBES Award in recognition of championing sustainability through the development of the K-Briq.
Kenoteq was spunout from Heriot-Watt University by Professor Medero and Dr Chapman in 2019.