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2025 Design Competition

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Manchester, UK

2025 Design Competition

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ASHRAE sponsors these competitions to encourage students to become involved in a profession that is crucial to ensuring a sustainable future for our Earth – the design of energy-efficient HVAC systems. ASHRAE will recognize the outstanding student design projects at the 2026 ASHRAE Winter Meeting scheduled for February in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America. The student design competition guidelines provide enough background information to enable the teams to design or select the HVAC system for the given building, or to design a sustainable building implementing an integrated building design process (the architectural and building design for sustainability, and its supporting mechanical and electrical systems) for the given program. The Setty Family Foundation Net Zero Energy Design competition's aim is to encourage students to extend their knowledge beyond the core mechanical systems. For the Net Zero Energy Design category, the final design level presented may be in a preliminary stage, as the competition's basic intention is to challenge students' imaginative thinking and creative engineering approach to the building and all of its systems.

Teams may compete in one of the three categories:

Projects can be submitted by graduate students in the Setty Family Foundation Net Zero Energy Design category (formerly ISBD) only. For the other categories, entries should originate from an undergraduate engineering or architecture curriculum. ASHRAE recommends that the project groups consist of two to six members. Team members can be from multiple colleges. All team members must be enrolled during the semester/term in which they contribute to the design.

  • Participating teams are NOT required to have an ASHRAE Student Branch at their university
  • Competition Description

    The 2025 student competition focuses on a new medical office building in Manchester, England. The final HVAC System Selection and Design for the proposed building shall address the following major design goals:

    • Energy efficiency,
    • Occupant health and safety
    • Occupant comfort,
    • Functionality
    • Future flexibility as well as maintainability and a 50-year service life.

    Owner's Project Requirements

    pdf_icon.png  Owners Project Requirements (Updated 10/18/2024)

    Weather Data

    icon_ZIP.gif Manchester, England

    Competition Drawings

    PDF Files DWG files

    pdf_icon.png pdf (I-P)

    pdf_icon.png pdf (SI)

    DWG Icon.png zip (I-P)

    DWG Icon.png zip (SI)

    ASHRAE Standards
    Student members can purchase ASHRAE standards at a discounted price. There are also read-only versions of popular ASHRAE Standards and Guidelines available here.

    1. HVAC Design Calculations
    For students who have attended 1-2 HVAC courses. Focuses on the design calculations required to provide an energy-efficient design for the facility. Students are required to determine heating and cooling loads, and design the selected HVAC systems for the building, while demonstrating compliance with ASHRAE Standards 55, 62.1, and 90.1.
    AND/OR

    2. HVAC Systems Selection
    For students at schools completing a dedicated HVAC or building environmental systems curriculum. The project encourages students with a solid HVAC base to use life-cycle cost process to select the building HVAC system(s) and incorporate the sustainability process promoted by ASHRAE by integrating ASHRAE Standard 189.1 and the US Green Building Council's LEED™ Rating System (or equivalent in the student’s home country).

    3. Setty Family Foundation Net Zero Energy Design
    This student competition requires multidisciplinary teams to design an energy efficient sustainable project approaching a "Zero Energy" building with minimized energy demands for HVAC and all other technical systems that could be satisfied with locally available or building-installed renewable energy sources (RES). Students will be asked to satisfy a national or local sustainability standard (LEED or the equivalent in their country), and then implement RES to approach "Zero Energy" limit.

    The fundamental goal of this design competition category is to encourage students to obtain experience in the Net Zero Energy Design process. Architects and engineers should work together from the very beginning to determine building orientation, layout, materials, mechanical systems, and electrical systems that meet the client's needs and work with the surrounding environment to minimize energy consumption.

  • Submission Instructions

    ALL SUBMISSIONS ARE TO BE SUBMITTED ELECTRONICALLY via the ASHRAE FTP site. Only those teams that register will get the FTP site information and instructions for uploading entries. 

    All teams that are registered participants of the 2025 Design Competition will receive the FTP upload instructions in April 2025 via email. If your team is not registered, you will NOT receive this information.

    The submission for the HVAC Design Calculations competition must be in PDF format only! No separate visual aids will be accepted (PowerPoint, YouTube, etc.). Deliverable presentation should consist of a 35-page maximum technical report in PDF format only. Font size should be 11 pts, utilizing either Arial or Times New Roman.

    The submission for HVAC System Selection competition is limited to a 15 minute visual aid (PowerPoint, YouTube, etc.) and technical report. All presentations must be automated and not page by page manual slide advancement. The technical report is limited to 30 pages in PDF format. Font size should be 11 pts, utilizing either Arial or Times New Roman.

    The submission for Setty Family Foundation Net Zero Energy Design competition is limited to a 15 minute visual aid (PowerPoint, YouTube, etc.) and technical report. All presentations must be automated and not page by page manual slide advancement. The technical report is limited to 35 pages in PDF format. Font size should be 11 pts, utilizing either Arial or Times New Roman.

  • Questions

    2025 Design Competition Frequently Asked Questions

    Have a question?
    Please submit your questions here
    Please allow up to 5 business days for a response. 

  • Timeline

    What is the Evaluation Time Schedule?  
    There will be three levels of evaluation. Evaluators at all levels will judge the design project reports, not only for content, but also for compliance with the competition rules.

    May 4, 2025
    Entries must be submitted electronically by this date by uploading the entry to the ASHRAE Society FTP site established for this purpose. Only teams who register will get the FTP site information emailed to them, so please register at least 30 days prior to this date to allow for processing. Late submissions will not be accepted so all teams must have their submission uploaded by 11:59pm EST on May 4, 2025.

    Only ASHRAE chapters with registered teams will have the FTP site emailed to them as well.

    Teams that do not have a local chapter are required to adhere to this same deadline. Your entry will be evaluated by the closest chapter to your school or your Regional Vice-Chair (RVC) for Student Activities.

    May 16, 2025
    Deadline for local ASHRAE Chapters to forward their selection of the best entry in each category to the Student Activities Regional Vice Chair (RVC). Chapters are to download the necessary entries from the ASHRAE FTP site for local judging. FTP site information is only distributed to those chapters that have teams registered to participate in the competition.

    Once your selection is made simply email the names of the winning entries to your RVC with a copy to kthomson@ashrae.org by the deadline above.

    If applicable, chapters should ALSO nominate a "rising star" as well. The Rising Star must be a school that does not qualify for the regional or Society competition, but is a quality entry and the school has not had a winning entry in the previous three years.

    June 6, 2025
    Deadline for local ASHRAE Student Activities Regional Vice Chairs to forward their selection of the best entry in each category to ASHRAE Headquarters for Society judging. Regional Vice Chairs are to download the necessary entries in your region from the ASHRAE FTP site for judging.

    Once your selection is made simply email the names of the entries to kthomson@ashrae.org by the deadline above.

    All entries that pass regional judging will be submitted to the Society judging committee for final judging.

    If applicable, Regional Vice Chairs can nominate a "rising star" as well. The Rising Star must be a school that does not qualify for the Society competition, but is a quality entry and the school has not had a winning entry in the previous three years.

    June 20, 2025
    Society level competition under the direction of the Student Activities Design Competition Subcommittee will complete evaluation of Society level entries, and will select first, second, and third place winners in each category. In order to encourage additional schools to participate in the competition, a "Rising Star" winner will be chosen within each category from among those schools that have not had a winning entry in the previous three years.

    Please Note: The Society level of the competition is conducted during a closed subcommittee session and therefore, team members and/or faculty advisors, or other persons outside of the Student Activities Committee, may not attend. Any violation of this notice can result in a team's disqualification from the competition.

    Friday August 1, 2025
    Winners announced

  • Awards

    Awards will be presented to the winners of each of the three competitions as follows:

      • First place
      • Second place
      • Third place
      • Rising Star

    First Place: For HVAC Design Calculations and HVAC System Selection - $2,000 prize plus a representative from the team will receive free transportation, two nights lodging and $100 expenses for attendance at the 2026 ASHRAE Winter Meeting to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada United States of America. For Setty Family Foundation Net Zero Energy Design - $5,000 prize plus an additional $5,000 for the winning team to travel to attend the 2026 ASHRAE Winter Meeting. The awards will be presented at the ASHRAE Plenary. A 24 x 36 inch poster is required for display at the ASHRAE Student Program.

    Second Place: A representative from the team will receive free transportation, two nights' lodging at the 2026 ASHRAE Winter Meeting to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America where the award will be presented at the ASHRAE Student Program. A 24 x 36 inch poster is required for display at the ASHRAE Student Program.

    Third Place: A representative from the team will receive free transportation, two nights lodging at the 2026 ASHRAE Winter Meeting to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America where the award will be presented at the ASHRAE Student Program. A 24 x 36 inch poster is required for display at the ASHRAE Student Program.

    Rising Star: A representative from the team will receive free transportation and two nights lodging for attendance at the 2026 ASHRAE Winter Meeting to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada United States of America where the award will be presented at the ASHRAE Student Program. A 24 x 36 inch poster is required for display at the ASHRAE Student Program.

    Click here to view previous winners. 

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