Restorative, revitalizing projects in Mexico, Niger, and the United States won the top three 5th Global LafargeHolcim Awards for Sustainable Construction. And all were led by women.
Alejandro Aravena (Chile) headed the independent jury of renowned experts. They evaluated the 15 finalist projects from all continents that had qualified for the global phase of the Awards. The $2 million competition is an initiative of the LafargeHolcim Foundation, which announces the first change in Chairman since its inception in 2003.
Hydropuncture in Mexico City.
Global LafargeHolcim Awards Gold 2018 goes to “Hydropuncture”, a publicly accessible water retention and treatment complex in Mexico.
The project team is led by design director Loreta Castro Reguera at Taller Capital, and researcher Manuel Perló Cohen from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).
The infrastructure project in an underprivileged area of Mexico City intermingles flood basins and public amenities with spaces that follow the gravitational logic of flowing water.
The jury stated that the sophisticated design addresses an urgent issue at a scale with real impact.
Legacy Restored in Niger.
“Legacy Restored”, the Awards Silver winner, is a religious and secular complex in Niger that reinterprets traditional local construction for a new mosque and a community center. The project was designed by architects Mariam Kamara of Atelier Masomi in Niger; and Yasaman Esmaili of Studio Chahar in Iran.
It creates a civic space open to all in the village of Dandaji, supporting the education of women and strengthening their presence within the community. The design strategy champions local artisanship, traditional building techniques and materials produced on site.
Repurposing and revitalizing vacant spaces via the Grassroots Microgrid in Detroit.
The community-driven neighborhood planning project “Grassroots Microgrid” won Awards Bronze for re-imagining empty lots as collective infrastructure for energy and food production as well as for civic engagement in Detroit, Michigan, USA.
The large team of authors is led by Constance C. Bodurow, founding Director of studio[Ci], a transdisciplinary design collaborative in Detroit.
The project enables neighborhoods to reach energy autonomy through micro-infrastructure, leverages vacant properties as an asset, and creates a new economic paradigm for community revitalization.
Jury head Alejandro Aravena commented that the global Gold and Silver winning projects act as role models: “They are masterful pieces that demonstrate what sustainable design and construction can achieve. As a community-driven initiative, the Bronze winner opens a path, innovating an approach that will need to be developed further,” said Aravena.
Repurposing and revitalizing vacant spaces via the Grassroots Microgrid in Detroit.
Aravena explained that the jury selected the water treatment project in Mexico for Gold because it builds large urban infrastructures that serve multiple purposes and become civic spaces. “Using architecture to give dignity to fragile rural communities losing population to urban migration,” was a main reason for awarding Silver to the project in Niger, said Aravena.
The Bronze winning project in the USA, finally, uses light and local infrastructure as a means of community building. “The context of the three global Awards winning projects is complementary, providing models for megacities, urban communities, and remote rural villages,” added Aravena: “They indicate two tendencies within the discourse on sustainability: a focus on infrastructure and new explorations of traditional ways of building.”
Legacy Restored in Niger.
The 5th International LafargeHolcim Awards competition attracted 5,085 projects and visions to be implemented in 131 countries. 1,836 projects passed the formal and quality checks and were assessed by independent juries in five competition regions: Europe, North America, Latin America, Middle East Africa and Asia Pacific. 11 prizes carrying a total of USD 330,000 per region were handed-over to winning teams in 2017.
The three main winners per region automatically qualified for the global Awards; and the 40 Acknowledgement and Next Generation prize-winners were eligible for the Awards Ideas prizes 2018. The prize pool for the global phase of the Awards totals USD 350,000. The International LafargeHolcim Awards cycle spans three years, the 6th competition will open for entries in mid-2019.
All renderings provided by the LafargeHolcim Foundation. Featured image is the Hydropuncture project in Mexico City.
Watch 2-minute video about the brilliant Hydropuncture project in Mexico City.