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The good news first: this years conference place and date are already fixed - thank you DB for that! Unfortunately our idea of holding the conference concurrent with the INNOTRANS railway fair failed because the accommodation expenses would have shot beyond the limits of a reasonable participation budget.
The Watford Group is an international voluntary association of architects, designers and other design professionels coming from railway-related companies and administrations, created in 1963.
2011 the we did not only enjoy the different excursions and the rich programme with a lot of opportunities to continue our professional exchange. Dominating event was of course the Brunel Awards Ceremony. Since 1985 the Watford Group donates the Brunel Awards as an international railway design competition - to promote the best of quality in railway-related design issues and to show the results achieved in this fields to a wider, non-professional audience.
So looking back to these 11th Brunel Awards we thank especially the hosting Center for Industrial Design in Transportation (c4idt) and our collegues there for conducting it so well, but not less we thank the International Union of Railways UIC and the Association of American Railroads AAR for their cooperation and the sponsors for their promotion of this prestigious event.
Jury President Ronald Kemnitzer found that the quality and creativity of the submissions posed a challenge of decision-finding to the Jury. The special Jury Prize for Design Excellence was awarded to Kyushu Railways and Metro North Railroad - congratulations!
So now we are excitedly looking forward to the next Watford Conference - which interesting projects of architecture and design are in preparation or under construction? What are new ideas and perceptions and what could we learn from them?
Let us meet in Berlin!
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