As the Workshop’s Mentor, Luke Olsen, pointed out, ‘our creativity and imagination must be reapplied on an integrated global and local scale to avoid a catastrophic chapter in the story of the Anthropocene. Two key questions and a challenge emerge: (i) how to reduce myth from fact to avoid collective or individual bias in the decarbonising energy debate and (ii) how to narrow the wake of innovation with high-quality, integrated and sustainable design. The challenge, therefore, is to achieve clean, free, renewable energy in less than a generation’.

The Norman Foster Foundation’s 2022 Energy Workshop included seminars, lectures, one-to-one tutoring and architectural tours. The workshop consisted of a five-day event led by Luke Olsen, Programme Director, MEng in Engineering and Architectural Design, Barlett School of Architecture, University of College London (UCL).

The Workshop’s Academic Body spanned a wide range of practitioners that work in different fields related to energy. This year’s Academic Body included Luke Olsen, Programme Director, MEng in Engineering and Architectural Design, Barlett School of Architecture, University of College London (UCL), London, United Kingdom; Frédérick Bordry, Director for Accelerators and Technology, Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN), Geneva, Switzerland; Jacopo Buongiorno, Director, Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (CANES), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, United States; Sheila Foster, Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Urban Law and Policy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, United States; Iain MacDonald, Professor, Instance of Uncertain Spaces (IUS), ArtEZ University of the Arts, Arnhem, The Netherlands; Dava J Newman, Director, Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, United States; Guillermo Trotti, President and Founder, Trotti & Associates, Inc., Cambridge, MA, United States; Holly Samuelson, Area Head, MDes in Energy and Environment, Graduate School of Design (GSD), Harvard.

After reviewing applications submitted by hundreds of candidates from around the world, the selection committee awarded ten scholarships to students from the following universities and institutions: University College London (UCL), London, United Kingdom; Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland; Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), Barcelona, Spain; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States; Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH), Zürich, Switzerland; University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany; Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya.