| Holcim Foundation Awards for Sustainable Construction | |
| Awarded For: | Exemplary projects in sustainable design and construction |
| Country: | International |
| Reward: | Total USD 1 million |
| Year: | 2005 |
| Presenter: | Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction |
The Holcim Foundation Awards for Sustainable Construction is an international competition that showcases projects that contribute to sustainable construction and the transformation of the building sector. A total of USD $1 million in prize money is awarded in each two-year cycle.[1]
The competition was known as the Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction from 2004. Holcim Ltd and Lafarge S.A. completed their global merger and launched LafargeHolcim in July 2015. The name of the foundation was changed to LafargeHolcim Foundation, and the competition became the LafargeHolcim Awards.[2] Once the group dropped Lafarge from its name, the Foundation also adopted the new naming. For the 2025 competition, the name was changed to the Holcim Foundation Awards.[3]
The Holcim Foundation Awards is a global competition awarded across five geographic areas: North America, Latin America, Middle East Africa, Asia Pacific, and Europe. Entries in the competition are allocated to a region based on the location of the project.
Since 2023, there is only one category within the competition:[4] [5] The Holcim Foundation Awards is open to architects, planners, engineers, and project owners that showcase sustainable responses to technological, environmental, socioeconomic and cultural issues affective contemporary building and construction. Until the 6th cycle, the Next Generation category was open for students and young professionals not older than 30. The category was seeking visionary design concepts and bold ideas including design studio and research work.[6]
Submissions are evaluated by independent juries, using the Foundation's "four goals" to define sustainable construction: uplifting places, healthy planet, viable economics, and thriving communities.[7]
The independent juries consist of experts from architecture, engineering, planning, and the construction industry.[8] The juries for 2025 will be chaired by Sou Fujimoto (Japan), Kjetil Thorsen (Europe), Sandra Barclay (Latin America), Lina Ghotmeh (Middle East & Africa) and Jeanne Gang (North America).[9]
The total prize money for each cycle of the Holcim Foundation Awards competition is US$1 million.[10]
| Year | Gold | Silver | Bronze | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Extending the Cycle in Switzerland – Upgrade using circular material flows by Michèle Brand, Pascal Hentschel, Marc Angst, Kerstin Müller, Barbara Buser, Benjamin Poignon – baubüro in situ, Basel, Switzerland; Katrin Pfäffi – preisig:pfäffi, Zurich, Switzerland; Fachstelle Nachhaltiges Bauen | Wetland Vitality in Colombia – Landscape design for environmental recovery by Egdar Mazo, Sébastian Mejía, Louis Maria Van Asten, Santiago Hurtado and Gloria Aponte – Connatural, Medellín, Colombia | Propagated Sanctuary in Vietnam – Urban forest and economic catalyst by Viet Anh Nguyen, Duc Trung Nguyen, Marek Obtulovic, Hoang Long Nguyen – ODDO architects, Hanoi, Viet Nam and Cultural Interlude in Morocco – Music school and ecotourism center by Aziza Chaouni – Aziza Chaouni Projects, Toronto, Canada | |
| 2018 | Publicly-accessible water retention and treatment complex, Mexico City, Mexico by Manuel Perló, Loreta Castro Reguera, Yvonne Labiaga, Elena Tudela, Víctor Luna, Fernando Gómez – Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico; Oscar Torrentera – HUVA Consultoría; Julian Arroyo – D202, Mexico City, Mexico; Sara Sour – Virens Arquitectura Paisaje Ingeniería, Mexico City, Mexico; Gustavo Rojas – Área Común, Mexico City, Mexico; Néstor Rangel – Taller Capital, Mexico City, Mexico; José Antonio Poncelis and Jorge Compeán – GAIA, Los Angeles, USA; Alejandra Ramos – Mexico City, Mexico; Emilio Ponce – Mexico City, Mexico; Jetro Centeno – Mexico City, Mexico; Margarita Gorbea – Mexico City, Mexico; Oscar Díaz – Mexico City, Mexico; Lino Pau – Mexico City, Mexico | Religious and secular complex, Dandaji, Niger by Mariam Kamara – atelier masomi, Niger; Yasaman Esmaili – studio chahar, Iran | Community-driven neighborhood planning, Detroit, USA by Constance C. Bodurow, Eric Mahoney – studio[Ci], Detroit, USA; Will Bright, David Cross – It Starts at Home (IS@H), Detroit, USA; Darrel West – Detroit, USA; Donald Carpenter – Great Lakes Stormwater Management Institute, Southfield, USA; Mark Hagerty – Michigan Solar Solutions, Commerce, USA; Nathaniel Autrey – DTE Energy, Detroit, USA; Mark Drotar – Detroit, USA; Meaghan Markiewicz – Detroit, USA; Drew Bradford – Detroit, USA; Paige Spagnuolo – Detroit, USA; Ruiyi Liu – Detroit, USA; Amin Toghiani – Detroit, USA; Yochen Pan – Detroit, USA; Tim Miller – Detroit, USA; Yu Zhu – Detroit, USA; Brandi Patterson – Detroit, USA; Cory Benjamin – Detroit, USA; Drew Mittig – Detroit, USA; Fares Ahmed – Detroit, USA; Lina Alosachie – Detroit, USA; Karl Seidman – Detroit, USA; Leigh Carroll – Detroit, USA; Grant Williams – Detroit, USA; Sam Jung – Detroit, USA; Kelly Blynn – Detroit, USA; David Musselman – Detroit, USA | |
| 2015 | UVA de La Imaginación water reservoirs, Medellin, Colombia by Mario Fernando Camargo Gómez and Luis Orlando Tombé Hurtado – Colectivo 720, Cali, Colombia | Community Library, Ambepussa, Sri Lanka by Milinda Pathiraja and Ganga Ratnayake – Robust Architecture Workshop, Colombo, Sri Lanka | The Dryline (Big U) flood protection, New York City, USA by Kai-Uwe Bergmann, Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Christoffersen, Daniel Kidd and Jeremy Siegel – BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, New York, USA; Matthijs Bouw and Ivo de Jeu – One Architecture, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Laura Starr, Stephen Whitehouse, Andrea Parker and Melon Wedick – Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners, New York, USA; James Lima – James Lima Planning + Development, New York, USA; Steven Baumgartner – Buro Happold Engineering, New York City, USA; Byron Stigge – Level Agency for Infrastructure, New York, USA; - One Architecture, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Christina Kaunzinger – Green Shield Ecology, Bridgewater, USA; Edgar J. Westerhof – ARCADIS, USA; Daniel Payne – AEA Consulting, Beacon, USA; Prem Krishnamurthy – Project Projects, New York, NY, USA | |
| 2012 | Secondary school, Gando village, Burkina Faso by Diébédo Francis Kéré – Kéré Architecture, Berlin, Germany | Fábrica de Música public building, Grotão, São Paulo, Brazil by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner – Urban-Think Tank (U-TT), São Paulo, Brazil | Flussbad Berlin (Project), Berlin, Germany by Tim Edler and Jan Edler – realities: united, Berlin, Germany | |
| 2009 | River remediation and urban development scheme, Fez, Morocco by Aziza Chaouni and Takako Tajima – Bureau EAST, Los Angeles, USA | Greenfield university campus, Mekong Delta, Vietnam by Kazuhiro Kojima – Coelacanth and Associates C+A, Tokyo, Japan, Sanuki Daisuke – Daisuke Sanuki Architectural Design Office, Tokyo, Japan, and Vo Nghia – Vo Trong Nghia Co. Ltd, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam | Rural community, Beijing, China by Yue Zhang – Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, Feng Ni – Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning, Beijing, China and Lingbo Sun – Urbanenergy, Cambridge, MA, USA | |
| 2006 | Main Station, Stuttgart, Germany by Christoph Ingenhoven – Ingenhoven und Partner Architekten, Düsseldorf, Germany and Urban Integration Project, San Rafael-Unido, Caracas, Venezuela by Silvia Soonets, Isabel Pocaterra, Maria Pocaterra and Victor Gastier – Proyectos Arqui5, Caracas, Venezuela | Waterpower, Mulini Valley, Italy by Luigi Centola – Centola & Associati, Salerno, Italy and Mariagiovanna Riitano – University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy | Greening the Infrastructure at Benny Farm, Montreal, Canada by Daniel Pearl, Mark Poddubiuk and Bernard Olivier – L'OEUF (L'Office de L'Eclectisme Urbain et Fonctionnel), Montreal, Canada |