MANILA, Philippines - The second Holcim awards competition to promote sustainable construction worldwide is now open. Entries in the competition can be submitted until Feb. 29 to www.holcimawards.org.
The prize money for the five regional competitions and the global awards totals US$2 million.
The awards are an initiative of the Swiss-based Holcim Foundation to encourage and inspire a built environment that goes beyond convention to address the challenges of sustainability.
The competition showcases sustainable responses to technological, environmental, socioeconomic and cultural issues affecting contemporary building and construction. The awards are open to anyone involved with projects in the area of sustainable construction?architects, planners, engineers and project owners.
All building projects are eligible for the competition if construction had not started before June 1 of this year. The first phase of the competition will select regional winners in 2008 that will automatically qualify for the global competition to be held in 2009.
The competition also has a category that seeks visions and ideas at a conceptual level. This special category is open to professionals younger than 35.
?Target issues?
Entries are evaluated by independent juries in five regions of the world, using a five-point definition of sustainable construction.
?Target issues? serve as a yardstick to measure the degree to which a building contributes to sustainable development.
Three of the five target issues align with the primary goals of the Rio Agenda: balanced environmental, social and economic performance.
One target issue applies specifically to building: the creation of good buildings, neighborhoods, towns and cities.
A further target issue recognizes the need for significant advancements that can be applied on a broad scale: ecological quality and energy conservation; economic performance and compatibility; ethical standards and social equity; contextual and aesthetic impact; and quantum change and transferability.
The juries will be headed by internationally renowned architects and academics: Harry Gugger, architect and author, Switzerland (European region); Adèle Naude Santos, dean of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA (North American region); José Luis Cortés, dean of Architecture, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico (Latin American region); Joe Addo, architect, Ghana (Africa Middle Eastern Region); and Ashok Lall, architect, India (Asia Pacific Region).
Charles Correa, architect, India, will chair the jury of the global Holcim Awards competition.
Top universities
A full list of all members of each jury is available on www.holcimawards.org, where comprehensive information on the competition is available and entries can be submitted online in English only.
To carry out the competition, the Holcim Foundation works closely with leading technical universities: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), Switzerland; MIT in Cambridge, USA; Tongji University in Shanghai, China; Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico; and University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. These universities lead the independent juries in their regions.
Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil is an associated university of the foundation.
46 prize-winning projects
The Holcim Awards 2005/06 attracted more than 3,000 submissions from 120 countries.
Joint winners of the gold award were an urban integration project in Caracas, Venezuela, and the design for a new main railway station in Stuttgart, Germany.
The silver went to a regional master plan and renewal strategy for the Mulini Valley near Amalfi, Italy. The bronze went to a low-cost housing and urban renewal project in Montreal, Canada.
Philippine entry
The Philippine entry in 2005-2006, ?Concrete Substrates for Accelerated Coral Restoration,? was an innovative response to the restoration of marine ecosystem in the Misamis Oriental coastline. It won silver in the 2005 Asia Pacific regional competition.
The jury cited the project team of Ernesto Peláez, Limuel Alfeche, Ronald Roland Rodriguez and Oscar Cinco for developing an inexpensive easy-to-build, low-cost, spider-shaped concrete skeleton framework that, when submerged a short distance from the shore, stimulates regeneration of vanishing coral growth in endangered coastal areas. Once coral-encrusted, the concrete structure increases the quantity and diversity of fish species, benefiting coastal fishing communities.
This entry, as cited by the jury, ?displays ingenuity in tackling a highly complex issue while offering a modest, but aesthetically refined design solution to the challenges at hand.?
?Ivatan Agricultural Campus in Itbayat (Batanes),? a student entry by Artessa Saldivar-Sali and Aaron Lecciones, received an Encouragement Award ?primarily because of the effort to directly involve local stakeholders.?
Ecological concerns are also brought to the foreground with the call for regionally sourced materials and recycling of natural resources that ?are convincing in their aesthetic sensitivity to the indigenous culture,? the awards said.
The Holcim Awards competition is an initiative of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, supported by Holcim Ltd. but is independent of the company?s commercial interests.
Holcim Ltd. is one of the world?s leading suppliers of cement and aggregates (crushed stone, sand and gravel) as well as downstream activities such as ready-mix concrete and asphalt including services. The Holcim Group holds majority and minority interests in over 70 countries in all continents.
Details about online entry submission and competition guidelines, previous prize-winning projects, and the Holcim Foundation are available at www.holcimawards.org.
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