Final Year Students win in the ASHRAE Design Competition 2026

Congratulations to our final year students Tong Chi Ho, Hadi Muhammad Raahim, Chow Ching Mei, Chan Wing Ho who have been awarded first place in the HVAC Systems Selection category of the ASHRAE Design Competition 2026.  Since first receiving the Rising Star Award in 2019, HKU student teams were able to reach the podium for five consecutive years in 2020, 21, 22, 23 & 24. This is the seventh time that HKU received the award from the competition.  The award will be presented at the ASHRAE 2027 Winter Conference in Chicago in January 2027.

The ASHRAE Design Competition is an international competition in air conditioning and refrigeration in which design teams from universities across the world are required to conduct a comprehensive design of a real project assigned by the organizer.  There are a few categories in the competition: HVAC Design Calculations, HVAC Systems Selection, Setty Family Foundation Net Zero Energy Design, Setty Family Foundation Applied Engineering Challenge and Building EQ.  Student teams are invited to participate in one or more of the categories.  In this year, a 8,630 sq.m. new building to a university campus in Denver, Colorado was chosen. The building consists of offices, laboratories, and other supporting spaces.  New HVAC systems are to be designed for the building including load calculations, system selection, ductwork and pipework layout, optimization of design, compliance with energy and green building standards, and integration with the architectural design and building envelope, etc.  For HKU students, the design of HVAC system for both heating and cooling in a totally different climate compared to the sub-tropical climate in Hong Kong is a great challenge.

The competition was opened to all universities and submissions had to successfully go through selection boards at local, regional and international levels. Our HKU team managed to outperform the other 44 teams from across the world to win the competition.