RECAP News
02/01/2008 - Comberton pupil gets to the art of recycling
Winning designer, Abbey Stevenson with other students from Comberton VC and Liz Hawkins, Waste Campaigns Officer at Cambridgeshire County Council.
Comberton Village College pupil Abbey Stevenson has won a competition to design a sculpture using recycled material to take pride of place at a new educational centre. The competition was run by Cambridgeshire County Council, the Smartlife Centre, Donarbon Ltd and Star Radio.
Abbey, a BTech Art and Design Student, designed the winning sculpture, chosen from over 30 entries, – a model human hand with planet Earth cradled in its palm.
She explained that the sculpture was designed to make people think about the massive impact people have on the planet, and that was reflected in the scale – a large hand with a tiny fragile Earth in it. The winner was chosen by votes made to the Star Radio website, which displayed all the entries.
Abbey won her Village College £1,000, donated by Donarbon and her winning design will be scaled up and made into a full size sculpture taking pride of place at the new Donarbon Education Centre, to be built at their Waterbeach site on the A10.
On average, each person in the UK throws away seven times his or her body weight (about 500kg) in rubbish every year. It is essential that we find ways to reduce the waste we generate, at work, at home and at play.
Schools were challenged to design and build a sculpture illustrating the theme of ‘Sustainable Living’ using only recycled material.
The £1,000 prize money will be spent to support educational visits by the Art and Design course students. There are currently 29 students studying the course at Comberton Village College, and there is a strong sustainable theme running through the course, which is run by teacher Nicola Powys, who encouraged her students to enter. Next summer, to tie in with the launch of a construction BTech, they will be running a module on sustainable architecture. A series of talks will be given by local architects, and visits made to see sustainable design in action.
The SmartLife Centre is a working example of sustainable design with all heat and energy provided from ground source pumps, solar panels and a wind turbine.
Louise Dailly of SmartLife said: "The winner was selected by StarRadio listeners who voted via their website. We were really please with the choice, and agreed with the voters that it stood out as a great design."
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