The Holcim Award winners for North America have been announced in Toronto. The 13 winning projects illustrate how sustainable construction continues to evolve—developing more sophisticated and multi-disciplinary responses to the challenges facing the building and construction industry.
The winning teams will share more than $300,000 in prize money.
All images courtesy Holcim.
GOLD PRIZE: Poreform
Las Vegas
Authors: Water Pore Partnership, Yale University
This design proposal repositions water infrastructure as a civic project. Facing a significant shortage of water in an arid region, local drainage systems are incapable of handling and collecting the water that floods the Las Vegas valley when it rains.
Poreform, a porous concrete surface poured in place with fabric formwork is capable of rapid saturation and slow release, and reframes water as a valuable resource rather than a liability. The surface feeds water to subterranean basins. It is located within the public realm and claims a stake as civic infrastructure that is as important as its nearby sister, the Hoover Dam.
SILVER PRIZE: Rebuilding by Design
New York
Authors: Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners, One Architecture, James Lima Planning + Development, Buro Happold Engineering, Level Agency for Infrastructure, Green Shield Ecology, ARCADIS, AEA Consulting, Project Projects
The BIG U project, which you can read more about here, addresses the vulnerability of New York City to coastal flooding and proposes a protective ribbon around lower Manhattan. The master plan uses a raised berm strategically to create a sequence of public spaces along the water’s edge along the raised bank.
The infrastructural barrier incorporates a range of neighborhood functions and as a result offers multiple design opportunities, fostering local commercial, recreational, and cultural activities.
BRONZE PRIZE: Hy-Fi
New York
Authors: The Living, Arup, 3M, Ecovative Design
Hy-Fi is a cluster of circular towers formed using reflective bricks, designed for and commissioned by the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. The structure uses recent advances in biotechnology combined with cutting-edge computation and engineering to create new building materials that are almost fully organically grown and compostable.
Beyond the use of technological innovations, the tower challenges perceptual expectations through unexpected relationships of patterns, color, and light. You can see more here.
Check out the other winners at the Holcim Foundation
Related Stories
| Dec 17, 2010
Gemstone-inspired design earns India’s first LEED Gold for a hotel
The Park Hotel Hyderabad in Hyderabad, India, was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to combine inspirations from the region’s jewelry-making traditions with sustainable elements.
| Dec 17, 2010
Alaskan village school gets a new home
Ayagina’ar Elitnaurvik, a new K-12 school serving the Lower Kuskikwim School District, is now open in Kongiganak, a remote Alaskan village of less than 400 residents. The 34,000-sf, 12-classroom facility replaces one that was threatened by river erosion.
| Dec 17, 2010
New engineering building goes for net-zero energy
A new $90 million, 250,000-sf classroom and laboratory facility with a 450-seat auditorium for the College of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign is aiming for LEED Platinum.
| Dec 17, 2010
Vietnam business center will combine office and residential space
The 300,000-sm VietinBank Business Center in Hanoi, Vietnam, designed by Foster + Partners, will have two commercial towers: the first, a 68-story, 362-meter office tower for the international headquarters of VietinBank; the second, a five-star hotel, spa, and serviced apartments. A seven-story podium with conference facilities, retail space, restaurants, and rooftop garden will connect the two towers. Eco-friendly features include using recycled heat from the center’s power plant to provide hot water, and installing water features and plants to improve indoor air quality. Turner Construction Co. is the general contractor.
| Dec 17, 2010
ARRA-funded Navy hospital aims for LEED Gold
The team of Clark/McCarthy, HKS Architects, and Wingler & Sharp are collaborating on the design of a new naval hospital at Camp Pendleton in Southern California. The $451 million project is the largest so far awarded by the U.S. Navy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The 500,000-sf, 67-bed hospital, to be located on a 70-acre site, will include facilities for emergency and primary care, specialty care clinics, surgery, and intensive care. The Building Team is targeting LEED Gold.
| Dec 17, 2010
How to Win More University Projects
University architects representing four prominent institutions of higher learning tell how your firm can get the inside track on major projects.
| Dec 13, 2010
Energy efficiency No. 1 priority for commercial office tenants
Green building initiatives are a key influencer when tenants decide to sign a commercial real estate lease, according to a survey by GE Capital Real Estate. The survey, which was conducted over the past year and included more than 2,220 office tenants in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, the UK, Spain, and Japan, shows that energy efficiency remains the No. 1 priority in most countries. Also ranking near the top: waste reduction programs and indoor air.
| Dec 7, 2010
Blue is the future of green design
Blue design creates places that are not just neutral, but actually add back to the world and is the future of sustainable design and architecture, according to an interview with Paul Eagle, managing director of Perkins+Will, New York; and Janice Barnes, principal at the firm and global discipline leader for planning and strategies.
| Dec 7, 2010
Green building thrives in shaky economy
Green building’s momentum hasn’t been stopped by the economic recession and will keep speeding through the recovery, while at the same time building owners are looking to go green more for economic reasons than environmental ones. Green building has grown 50% in the past two years; total construction starts have shrunk 26% over the same time period, according to “Green Outlook 2011” report. The green-building sector is expected to nearly triple by 2015, representing as much as $145 billion in new construction activity.
| Dec 7, 2010
USGBC: Wood-certification benchmarks fail to pass
The proposed Forest Certification Benchmark to determine when wood-certification groups would have their certification qualify for points in the LEED rating systemdid not pass the USGBC member ballot. As a result, the Certified Wood credit in LEED will remain as it is currently written. To date, only wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council qualifies for a point in the LEED, while other organizations, such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the Canadian Standards Association, and the American Tree Farm System, are excluded.
