News

The Seebaldt Project (TSP) – “Grassroots Microgrid” – is truly a community-driven contribution to brighten the future of residents in the “Comeback City” of Detroit: A picnic party including the entire neighborhood was enabled by the LafargeHolcim Foundation to celebrate the Global Awards Bronze 2018, that was later handed over to the winning team of authors at the Waterview Loft, Port Detroit.

The situation in most informal settlements is out of control: The residents urgently need help to improve their living conditions – but complicated legal issues and diverse interests prevent people from realizing beneficial projects. Resolution and endurance is required, as the project PIPA in Paraisópolis shows.

The LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction has released Fifth LafargeHolcim Awards – Sustainable Construction 2017/2018. The 250-page book showcases state-of-the-art approaches to sustainable design that meet societal needs, promote an economy of means and address ecological footprints. Although the projects are diverse in terms of geography, program and scale – they are all the result of true teamwork across generations, genders and ethnicities.

Al Borde Arquitectos from Ecuador are redefining their paradigm on the architects’ role in society and have created a documentary about the practice of the post-crisis generation of young architecture studios. The LafargeHolcim Awards 2014 jury for Latin America praised the young architects based in Quito for their urban revitalization project that draws on the rural tradition of barter. This form of non-monetary exchange enables the refurbishment of housing in the historical center of the city for residents without sufficient monetary means. The project was considered “a promising economic model to literally mine cities rather than nature” by the jury.

Top managers of LafargeHolcim and Holcim Switzerland were introduced to state-of-the-art research on sustainable construction and materials technology across Switzerland at the NEST Building at Empa Dübendorf (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology), the Arch_Tec_Lab for interdisciplinary research at ETH Science City in Zurich, the Smart Living Lab of EPFL in Fribourg as well as the Laboratory of Construction Materials EPFL in Lausanne.

The LafargeHolcim Awards Bronze 2017 Europe winning zero carbon ZEDpod is a prefabricated home with a difference. The approach decouples housing provision from land prices by installing the units with “air rights” over car parks, offering almost instant high-quality housing solutions without the land and planning issues associated with a conventional new build.

Rotterdam-based Ooze Architects was selected as one of six groups to be featured in short films in the Creative Industries Funds annual report. The project of Eva Pfannes and Sylvain Hartenberg won LafargeHolcim Awards Bronze 2017 Latin America and was praised for creating an active relationship between water management and the community.

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A project to drive long-term community engagement has started to make tangible steps forward in suburban Detroit. The Global LafargeHolcim Awards Bronze 2018 winner aims to improve living conditions in an area emerging from economic decline. The components of the project include solar power generation, rainwater collection and urban farming – which all make the neighborhood more attractive for renters and potential home-owners, thereby building momentum for urban recovery.

A construction materials recycling and logistics hub at the Vergotedok in the heart of Brussels has been completed. The LafargeHolcim Acknowledgment prizewinner from Belgium in 2014 by TETRA architecten was praised for applying sustainability principles to the construction of infrastructure – in a warehouse complex for the trade of building materials in the port of Brussels.

The impressive vaulted Droneport prototype of low-carbon compressed earth and cement Durabric developed by LafargeHolcim is still welcoming visitors at the north entrance to the Arsenale in Venice. Created for the 2016 Architecture Biennale, the structure is symbolic as a gateway to the world’s most significant architecture exhibition.

The LafargeHolcim Foundation website contains a wealth of information on sustainable design – including more than 1,500 web pages, 1,000 documents and 10,000 images. To help make finding the most relevant information easier, our website search engine has been upgraded to improve how you can search for project descriptions and expert profiles, PDFs, images and videos on the LafargeHolcim Foundation website. 

An ambitious project to transform public perceptions of water, and to embed civic amenities into water infrastructure is underway in Mexico City. The Global LafargeHolcim Awards Gold winning project will improve conditions in the dense urban fabric by forming a greenbelt that doubles as water management infrastructure. Hydropuncture consolidates an alternate, decentralized, and sustainable water management system for Mexico City. Work is progressing according to plan. Basic earthworks are completed and the series of terraced platforms and retaining walls of volcanic stones are in place.

Esquimalt Municipal Council has approved a rezoning application enabling the go-ahead of the Corvette Landing development. The building’s 83-units will be in the form of studio and one, two and three-bedroom suites located adjacent to Esquimalt Harbor in the urban area of Victoria, the provincial capital of British Columbia. The 12-storey mass timber pre-fabricated modular construction will provide affordable homes and won the LafargeHolcim Awards Silver for North America in 2017. The design by Vancouver-based Lang Wilson Practice in Architecture Culture is based on “BC-produced mass-timber technology” using engineered wood products and off-site construction methods.

The Awards Acknowledgement winning project of Kennedy & Violich Architecture has now been completed with ten apartments, studios and penthouses in the urban in-fill development. The building creates a unique identity through its set-back terraced façade that gives out onto the street, its transformation of wrought iron fire escapes into a digitally designed and fabricated screen wall.

Projects in Mexico, Niger, and the USA win the 5th Global LafargeHolcim Awards for Sustainable Construction. As diverse as the three top projects are in terms of geography, program and scale – they are all the result of true teamwork across generations, genders and ethnicities. Alejandro Aravena (Chile) headed the independent jury of renowned experts who evaluated the 15 finalist projects from all continents that had qualified for the global phase of the Awards. The USD 2 million competition is run by the LafargeHolcim Foundation, an initiative of LafargeHolcim, the leading global building materials and solutions company.

The Board of the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction – an initiative of LafargeHolcim, the leading global building materials and solutions company – will be chaired by Roland Köhler from April 1, 2018. Roland Köhler was a member of the Executive Committee of LafargeHolcim and takes over from Rolf Soiron, founding Chairman of the Foundation since 2003.

Construction of the first of 28 chalice-shaped concrete pillars that will be the eye-catching feature of the 400m long and 80m wide train station concourse in Stuttgart begins. The pillars will support the roof of the underground station and serve as “light eyes”, allowing daylight to enter the hall below. 

Interest was high in the LafargeHolcim Awards poster exhibition in Zurich, Switzerland. All day, the team was busy explaining the programs of the Foundation in general and the global Awards competition in particular. The mix of exhibition visitors – LafargeHolcim employees, competition participants, interested architects, retired engineers, and the next generation of specialists – proved that sustainability is a topic that connects professions and generations.

The third LafargeHolcim Roundtable brought together a panel of international experts to discuss content, choreography, and the potential outcomes from next year’s LafargeHolcim Forum. The meeting aligned workshop leaders in preparing for the international symposium, and built on previous meetings at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Endicott House in Dedham-Boston (2014) and ETH Zurich, Werner Oechslin Library in Einsiedeln, Switzerland (2015). The next LafargeHolcim Forum will be held at the American University in Cairo (AUC), Egypt on April 4-6, 2019 – and will focus on “Re-materializing Construction”.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Conservation Centre in Gland, Switzerland is one of the greenest office buildings in Europe. The LafargeHolcim Foundation published a monograph on this exemplary sustainable construction in English and French. This book in the Foundation’s monographic series of exemplary sustainable design has been translated by the Chinese National Commission of UNESCO and is available in a free digital version.