| Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Projects and visions in sustainable construction |
| Presented by | Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction |
| Country | International |
| Reward | Total USD 2 million |
| First awarded | 2005 |
| Official website | www.holcimawards.org |
The Holcim Awards is an international competition that seeks projects and visions in sustainable construction – irrespective of scale. A total of USD 2 million dollars in prize money is awarded in each three-year cycle.[1] Eligible for entry are projects in: buildings and civil engineering works; landscape, urban design and infrastructure; and materials, products and construction technologies. The Holcim Awards is conducted by the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction based in Switzerland.[2] Entries can only be made online.[3][4]
Contents |
The Holcim Awards competition opens with five regional Holcim Awards competitions and is followed by the Global Holcim Awards. The regional Holcim Awards are based on five geographic areas: Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, Middle East, and Asia Pacific. Entries in the competition are allocated to a region based on the location of the project.
There are two categories within the competition:[5][6] The main category of the competition 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. The fifteen projects that receive Holcim Awards Gold, Silver or Bronze in the five regions are then qualified for the competition for the Global Holcim Awards.[7] The “Next Generation” category is open to student projects created within university programs at final year bachelor level or above (including masters and PhD)
Submissions in both categories are evaluated by independent juries, using five “target issues” to define sustainable construction.[8] Three of these align with the triple bottom line concept concept of balanced social, environmental and economic performance. The rest cover contextual and aesthetic impact, and innovation and transferability.
The juries consist of independent, renowned representatives from science, business and society.[9] The regional juries are supported by the respective partner university and the global jury is supported by the Technical Competence Center of the Holcim Foundation (ETH Zurich, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA), Ecole Supérieure d’Architecture de Casablanca (EAC) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Bombay)).
The total prize money for each cycle of the regional and global Holcim Awards competitions is USD 2 million.[10]
The prize money for each of the five regional competitions is USD 300,000:
The projects awarded Holcim Awards Gold, Holcim Awards Silver, or Holcim Awards Bronze in all regional competitions automatically qualify for the global Holcim Awards competition. The total prize amount for the global competition is USD 500,000: