After the Jury had completed its deliberations, Living Steel spoke to each member to get their thoughts on the competition. Below you will find an edited transcript of the interview with each.

Alexei Venediktov It was a very great experience for me. It is the first time I met so many architects and their projects were so exciting for me. I spent all two days [listening], from early morning to the evening and it seems to me like it was one hour. It was time compressed and it was so interesting and their ideas, so different. Every time I watched and listened to the presentations I was trying to imagine that project within my city, my native city. I think many of them managed to satisfy the ideas [we have] for the development of my city.

Sergey Skuratov My general impressions are terrific. Housing is the most ancient and conservative form of human action. It is very tough to come and think of something new in the field of housing. There is a limit to human ideas, to human research and experimentation in this field. Nevertheless, I am interested in how representatives of other cultures, of other regions, of other heritages, put themselves in the place of Russian people. It is as if each of them lived a small life of the inhabitants of Cherepovets. I think this kind of experience must be extremely important. It may be more important for them than as a final outcome for Cherepovets. But the mutual penetration of cultures, usually reaches both ways.

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Patricia Patkau I actually think that the level is quite high in terms of the individual building concepts. There are some quite interesting ideas about steel in the schemes. Because of the way the competition was formatted I think there is potentially a missing scale in the landscape between the individual building and its boundaries and ideas about community and neighbourhood. I expect these will start to come out in the [Charrette] phase of the project. In general I think it has been quite interesting and a high level of work.

Kimmo Lintula Well I have to say that I am quite pleased with the outcome. I think it has been really interesting to have such an input, and such a thorough input, from many different countries and cultures.They are actually quite close to each other in the basic principles of sustainable housing. Yet they still come up with very challenging schemes or concepts which ask really good questions - like how housing should be for the future.

Mark Middleton There‘s a great diversity. Bringing everyone together from around the world you get all these kind of different opinions, different styles, and I’ve really enjoyed the kind of theatre of everything, of everybody being together. I think it’s been fantastic. I think what it has impressed upon me is that the Living Steel competitions have a unique place. Not just as an architectural competition, but as a kind of a conversation, a conference to bring people together. It’s been fantastic seeing the Brazilians with the Australians, with people from the UK, and the Indian entries and all talking and we’re all talking about the same things and all interested in each other’s work. I think that the competition has much more of a future beyond this. I think this is a real role model because it is quite unique within in the landscape of architectural competitions. So it has been very good; I have enjoyed it immensely.

To read an exclusive interview with jury chair Glenn Murcutt, click here.