The GROHE Water Prize awards visionary projects that are pushing the boundaries of design within the built environment and water. GROHE will award £10,000 to the winning project to help enhance the scheme.

This prize is supported by: 

About the prize

We are delighted to announce that WAF’s founder partner, GROHE, will once again support the Water Prize. GROHE is backing research to address the unique challenges presented by water, with the winning initiative set to receive £10,000 in funding. The results of this work will be presented at WAF 2025 on the Festival Hall Stage, and the overall winner will be awarded their trophy at the Gala Dinner on the final day of the festival in Miami.

The GROHE Water Prize 2025 will recognise exceptional thought leadership, innovation, and research initiatives. The programme will provide funding for work at universities or other research institutions focused on these crucial areas.

Entry criteria

An award of £10,000 will be made to a research programme investigating the architectural implications of some aspect of water in respect of buildings or the built environment.

The research, current or proposed, should:

• Identify a new challenge or opportunity, unresearched or under-researched, related to design and water
• Advance an understanding of water in relation to the built environment, for example in relation to storage, management, distribution, use, recycling etc
• Explain how the research is addressing the issue(s) identified
• Outline the potential outcome of the research
• Say how the research award would contribute to the outcome
• Entries will be accepted from architects, designers, universities or other research institutions
  

The entry timeline

• Entries open: February
• Entry deadline: 20 June
• Shortlist revealed: July
• Winner revealed: August

The winner is required to attend the festival in Miami. A complimentary ticket will be provided however travel and accommodation costs would be the responsibility of the winner.

2024 Winner

The Maotai Eco-Metaverse project, by Turenscape, was the unanimous choice of the judges as the winner of the GROHE Water Prize 2024.

The research & development project is being built on 8 hectares in Maotai Town, Guizhou Province, for a liquor distillery to manage a daily output of 7,000 tons of sewage and industrial wastewater, by creating an ecosystem that fully integrates water, nutrient, carbon, and energy recycling.

The project addresses the immediate environmental impacts of distillery operations in several ways:

- It enables the enhancement of the project’s innovative water recycling and the sustainable ecosyste

- It installs advanced real-time sensing technology to facilitate the creation of a detailed regression model that analyses the interplay between the nature-based Solutions (NbS) system's performance, and environmental variables like sunlight, temperature, and wind.

- The project makes a conscious effort to harmonise the company’s legacy and operations with modern environmental principles. Ensuring that economic growth does not come at the expense of the environment.

The judges noted this advanced technological and environmental proposal was welcome evidence of Chinese strong advancement and desire to be a leader in sustainable industrial practices. Although specific to a planned distillery, the principles involved would apply to any industrial facility using large amounts of water; the project is local, but can have global applications.

Not only does the project deal with the challenges of carbon, energy-efficiency, water cleansing and nutrient recycling through nature-based solutions, but it also creates an environment which would be attractive to visitors.

The monitoring of environmental and performance information, then used to tune the technological operation, make this a true research project, not simply the application of existing technology, and a worthy winner. It moves the needle.

2024 Shortlist