Yesterday, the Holcim Foundation has announced winners of the Global Holcim Awards competition with total prize money of USD 2 million. Winning projects from Morocco, Vietnam, China and the United States illustrate the broad scope of innovative ideas that improve lives, reduce environmental footprints and lead the way to a more sustainable planet.

The Holcim Awards is an international competition of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. The competition celebrates innovative, future-oriented and tangible sustainable construction projects and visions from around the globe and provides prize money of USD 2 million per three-year competition cycle.

The main Holcim Awards category is open to professionals from architecture, landscape and urban design, civil and mechanical engineering and related disciplines. The ‘Next Generation’ category promotes the visions of young architects and designers up to the age of 35.

More about the competition: www.holcimfoundation.org.

The $50k ‘Innovation’ Prize went to Liz Ogbu and John Peterson of San Francisco-based Public Architecture for their design of an informal station where laborers can meet and wait for casual work.

The global jury praised the project saying, ‘The structure provides a solution to what the surrounding neighborhoods often experience as social disorder and what local police forces find difficult to handle. Thus, the benefits extend to a larger social context than that of the workers themselves.’

Project description:

‘This is a minimal physical urbanistic intervention with maximum social equity and neighborhood enhancement effects. The project is a small structure that functions as a labormarket and service delivery platform for day laborers who wait for casual work every morning at customary gathering points. As this picking up of day workers takes place in cities across the United States, and in other countries, it is also a project that is worth replicating. It is low cost, and could be sponsored by the contractors of the day laborers.

The structure provides rest rooms, kitchen and office space for day workers. It is a first step in providing healthcare and the building of social networks for workers that are among the most vulnerable, poor and often denigrated. It is also a solution to what the surrounding neighborhoods often experience as social disorder and what local police forces find difficult to handle. Thus the benefits extend to a larger social context than that of the workers themselves. This larger positive social effect is further enhanced by the addition of community gardens to be maintained by the day workers themselves, particularly on those days when they are not picked up for work.’

More pictures: www.holcimfoundation.org.

Further information about the winning project: www.holcimfoundation.org.

These are the other three top sustainable construction projects out of thousands of submissions from all continents that have been selected for the Global Holcim Awards 2009:

*Gold award: ‘River remediation and urban development scheme’, Fez, Morocco:

*Silver award: ‘Low-impact greenfield university campus’, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam:

*Bronze award: ‘Sustainable planning for a rural community’, Beijing, China:

Learn more about the other finalist projects: www.holcimfoundation.org.