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Coinciding with its centenary, the American University in Cairo (AUC) will host the 6th International LafargeHolcim Forum for Sustainable Construction in early April 2019. The three-day symposium dedicated to “Re-materializing Construction” will bring together 300 specialists from more than 50 countries. It is organized by the LafargeHolcim Foundation with the support of Lafarge Egypt. The announcement took place in the presence of key national media.

Cities are to be intelligent, smart, diverse, bright, open, fluid, connected, safe – in brief: more sustainable. From this starting point, the participants in one of the opening panels of the 4 Design Days (4DD) in Katowice discussed what is next on the journey to achieve “happy cities for happy people” and what role architecture and designers have in getting there.

The main stages of construction for Hyrdropuncture: La Quebradora Water Park in Iztapalapa, Mexico City have been completed. The Global LafargeHolcim Awards Gold 2018 winning project represents a change in the paradigm of water management, and is coordinated by Manuel Perló of the Institute of Social Research (IIS) at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) with architect Loreta Castro of Taller Capital. After winning the top LafargeHolcim Awards prize, the project also received the Premio Ciudad for the best architectural intervention of the year for Mexico City in November 2018.

LafargeHolcim Côte d’Ivoire (LHCI) supports young local architects to expand their practical understanding of sustainable construction through a competition run in collaboration with the National Council of Architects in Côte d’Ivoire. The winners receive a six-month internship to work on sustainable construction projects with an experienced architect.

Milinda Pathiraja is passionate about the enormous potential for architecture to make a difference in rebuilding Sri Lanka in the aftermath of civil war. His work including the Global LafargeHolcim Awards winning Community Library in rural Ambepussa illustrates his focus on a form of architecture that not only produces spaces and constructed artifacts – but that also builds capacities and human capital. At TEDx Colombo, Milinda Pathiraja explained how his work creates a design format that embeds the training of unskilled labor into the construction of their projects, well before the first shovel of earth is moved.

The spirited British architect Bill Dunster is applying the knowledge he has acquired over decades of working on sustainable projects: He has a clever response to the housing shortage in Greater London that is affordable, sensible, environmentally friendly, attractive, and flexible. His concept might seem utopian. But only at first glance.

The LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction counts upon competent support, especially in the technical field, and has established a network with renowned universities on all continents that host symposiums, jury meetings and engage in promoting the LafargeHolcim Awards competition. The latest school to join the networks is the National University of Singapore (NUS).

The 6^th International LafargeHolcim Forum for Sustainable Construction will be hosted by the American University in Cairo from April 4 to 6, 2019. The LafargeHolcim Forum is dedicated to the topic of “Re-materializing Construction”. Keynote speeches, workshops and site visits will focus on strategies to reduce consumption throughout the material cycle from extraction to processing, transport, installation, maintenance, and removal.

Construction of the first real-scale CASTonCAST prototype at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) was completed successfully. Lluís Enrique Monzo, postdoc at the Chair of Structural Design and author of the LafargeHolcim Awards winning project, is keen to point out that his recent investigation “proved the viability of applying this innovative production system for concrete elements at a real-scale”.

Foundations 22, the magazine of the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, reviews the Global LafargeHolcim Awards 2018 winning projects from Mexico, Niger and the USA. The latest winners in the world’s leading competition for sustainable design showcase how innovation in design, construction, and materials deliver infrastructure that excels in social, ecological, and economic performance.

As homage to Spanish-Mexican architect and engineer Félix Candela, the Block Research Group of ETH Zurich and Zaha Hadid Architects designed an experimental structure called “KnitCandela”. Constructed at the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) in Mexico City, it is part of Zaha Hadid Architects’ first exhibition in Latin America. The dazzling concrete form reimagines Candela’s thin concrete structures through the introduction of new computational design methods and innovative formwork technology which were developed in Zurich.

“The LafargeHolcim Awards was the most important recognition we received,” said Kai-Uwe Bergmann, Partner architect at BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group. He presented the Awards prize-winning project “BIG-U (Dryline)”, protecting lower Manhattan from flooding, at the 12th Holcim Bau-Forum in Hannover, Germany. Under the theme of “Direction: Future”, the event brought together builders, architects, planners, and authorities for an inspiring exchange on the future of building and construction. In the context of diverse challenges including climate change, resource conservation, labor and digitization – Kai-Uwe Bergmann presented a range of projects that look to an exciting future, and a challenging role for architecture.

The Lake Victoria Challenge (LVC) held in Mwanza, Tanzania is the first-ever international symposium on drones and their possibilities in Africa. The World Bank estimates the global demand for drone infrastructure to surpass USD 130 billion in the near future confirmed Bella Bird, World Bank Director for Eastern Africa. The LCV was held in Tanzania’s second largest city on the shore of Lake Victoria, where the opportunities for development that leapfrogs the need for physical infrastructure were abundant and compelling.

To pursue its goal of promoting sustainability in construction on a global basis, the LafargeHolcim Foundation has established a network of renowned technical universities on all continents. The latest university to join is the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT Chicago). “We are thrilled to be associated with a school on a campus that is mentioned in the curriculum of every student of architecture around the world,” said Marc Angélil, Head of the Academic Committee and member of the Board of the Foundation, as the Memorandum of Understanding was signed.

The architect designed a school for the village of Aït Benhaddou in Morocco that combines sustainable construction methods with tradition. Her design relies heavily on a local building material – earth.

“The international recognition of the LafargeHolcim Awards has motivated us keep on fighting to make our project become a reality,” said Sol Camacho and Jonathan Franklin as they received their Global Awards 2018 finalist certificate from Juliana Adrigueto and Bruna Mattos, representing LafargeHolcim in Brazil. The design for a mixed-use civic hub with durable, low-maintenance architecture and long-term financing in the neighborhood of Paraisópolis in São Paulo had received the Awards Silver for Latin America in 2017.

How does sustainable construction support the Indonesian government to improve the quality of education? This was the question addressed by two LafargeHolcim Awards winning teams at an event hosted by Holcim Indonesia at the Jakarta Design Center.

A series of “Microlibrary” learning centers that aim to raise literacy by offering attractive spaces for reading by SHAU; and a school hub built using local materials that empowers local craftsmen by SASO Architecture Studio were showcased. Both projects illustrate how sustainable design can improve education quality – a commitment made by the national government under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework of the United Nations.

Two of the four most recent LafargeHolcim Awards Next Generation prizes for Latin America were conferred to teams from the Universidad National de Córdoba (UNC). The team that won the regional Next Generation 1st prize with their “Tidal Energy Landscape” project were also recipients of an Global Ideas prize selected by the Global LafargeHolcim Awards jury 2018, chaired by Alejandro Aravena (Chile).

The mass-timber buildings “Platforms for life” allow residents to adapt their living space to their personal needs – time and time again. The deeply integrated ecosystem of design engineering, technology and precision manufacturing is also sustainable in every other way. This achievement was made possible by decades of research.

Princeton University student Georgian Baronian is examining how large-scale structures can benefit from using water on the roof as a thermal insulator and solar reflector. She was presented with her Global LafargeHolcim Awards Ideas prize by Roland Köhler, Chairman of the Board of the LafargeHolcim Foundation and Maria Atkinson, founding CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia, and member of the Board of the LafargeHolcim Foundation.