Project Updates

The LafargeHolcim Awards Acknowledgement-prize winning One Spadina building of the John H Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, & Design is exemplary for embedding sustainability into the teaching, learning and research programs of the University of Toronto. The renovation and extension of the 1875 Gothic Revival building was designed by Nader Tehrani and Katherine Faulkner, of NADAAA in collaboration with Architect-of-record Adamson & Associates, landscape architects Public Work, and heritage architects ERA. One Spadina officially opened on November 17, 2017.

Language: Croatian no Subtitles

Nikola Znaor’s project offers a solution to energy-intensive cooling of buildings. In an interview on Croatian television program Eko zona (Eco-zone), he describes progress on his Air-Shade responsive and sustainable shading system, that is powered by air that is sensitive to solar exposure and uses no external energy source or sensors. Nikola Znaor points how winning a Next Generation prize in the world’s largest competition for sustainable design helped to finance the ongoing feasibility study for the project.

Video: Courtesy Eko zona – Hrvatska radiotelevizija (HRT).

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.

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.

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”.

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.

Thanks to strong public support and the establishment of a government committee, an urban swimming pool in the Spree River in central Berlin has taken two steps closer to reality.

“Flussbad Berlin” – the Global LafargeHolcim Awards Bronze 2012 prize-winning urban plan by Jan and Tim Edler will provide a public urban recreation space adjacent to the UNESCO World Heritage site, Museuminsel (Museum Island), for both residents and visitors.

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.

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.

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.