FOJAB arkitekter and MAX IV winner of the Skåne Architecture Prize 2016

Every year, Region Skåne awards the Skåne Architecture Prize to recognize and reward good built environment in Skåne. The winner of this year's award was the MAX IV synchronized light facility. This means that we at FOJAB arkitekter share the prize and honor with Snøhetta, who acted as landscape architect, and the developer Fastighets AB ML4.

MAX IV was one of three nominees from Skåne in the competition held at the Kreativa Skåne event at the Palladium in Malmö on November 11. The other nominees were Bruksgården in Höganäs and Stadsparksentrén in Helsingborg. The jury emphasized the importance of the facility as an important landmark and that the design has created a productive place for collaboration between people from all over the world.

"We are very proud and happy to be the winner of the Skåne Architecture Prize 2016. MAX IV has been one of our biggest projects in recent years. Many of us have worked on the project for several years and we can now proudly state that the facility has become a landmark in the region. The award is further confirmation of the hard and dedicated work our project team has put into creating MAX IV" says Daniel Nord, CEO of FOJAB arkitekter.

The project ran for 6 years, 2010-2016, and involved a total of 17 of the company's architects and engineers over the years. Greger Dahlström has been the architect responsible for the design and Janis Kursis has been the architect in charge. The building has previously been awarded the MIPIM Awards Best Futura Project and the Environmental Prize of the Year at the Concrete Gala 2015. MAX IV was ready for inauguration in June 2016.

Motivation of the jury:
"The Skåne Architecture Prize 2016 goes to the MaxIV Laboratory in Lund for a strong building form and an innovative landscape. The interaction between the iconic form of the building and the stringent curvature of the landscape helps to bridge the shift in scale between the large-scale highway landscape and the emerging research area. Despite its austere form, monumental scale and industrial character, the architects manage to create a surprising number of human qualities, both inside and out. The jury believes that the facility has all the prerequisites to become an important landmark in an emerging knowledge region, but more importantly that the design has created a productive place where the conditions of the future are shaped by the collaboration of people from all over the world."

In 2016, the building was also approved and certified by BRE for post construction (finished building) according to BREEAM-SE. BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) is an environmental certification system from the UK, developed and administered by BRE (Building Research Establishment). It is one of the oldest environmental certification systems and has been used to certify over 500,000 buildings in Europe. BREEAM-SE is the Swedish version of the system. MAX IV's score was 86.5% with a rating of 'Outstanding'.

Read more about MAX IV