Foundations 19, the magazine of the LafargeHolcim Foundation, is dedicated to the 5th International LafargeHolcim Forum, which took place in Detroit, USA, and focused on the importance of sustainable construction in creating adaptable infrastructure for society. The symposium brought together some 300 leading things from architecture, civil engineering, urban planning, social science, business, and industry from 40 countries. They spent three days examining questions related to infrastructure on architectural, metropolitan, territorial, and planetary scale – today and for the long term.

The magazine summarizes the keynote speeches of architect Keller Easterling (USA) on the gap between perception and the importance of infrastructure, and urbanist Ricky Burdett (UK) on the relationships between infrastructure and sustainability. Carlos Lopes (Ethiopia), Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) reported on Africa’s acute infrastructure deficit and Henk Ovink (Netherlands), Special Envoy for International Water Affairs, examined future crises through the theme of water.

Director of the Environment Directorate at OECD, Simon Upton (France) asserted that the mega-systems of human infrastructure and the heavily burdened natural infrastructure of the earth must be brought into peaceful coexistence. LafargeHolcim CEO Eric Olsen (Switzerland) examined how the construction industry can contribute much to sustainable development and also to infrastructure, and Editor of the Detroit Free Press, Stephen Henderson (USA) provided a local perspective on Detroit, and the impact on its citizens as one of the few large cities on the planet that has been hit by massive shrinkage

In the Concluding Debate, experts Maria Atkinson, Arab Hoballah, Rahul Mehrotra, and Edgar Mora Altamirano summed up the keynote speeches and workshop findings in a discussion moderated by Rolf Soiron. The discussion affirmed the urgent need for a new political framework, including rewards and sanctions, to steer the world in a sustainable and economically feasible direction.

read Foundations 19 online (flip-book)

download Foundations 19 (PDF, 8.75MB)

Academic publication to follow

A 400-page academic book on the topic of Infrastructure Space edited by Ruby Press of Berlin will be released in November 2016. The book will include academic papers delivered at the LafargeHolcim Forum and articles inspired by the symposium.

Book details

Foundations 19 (80 pages. 208 x 296mm) is published by the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, Hagenholzstrasse 85, CH-8050 Zurich, Switzerland.

ISBN 978-3-033-05718-0