Cycle Summary
Read an overview of the Awards competition per cycle including key figures, winners video, media release and further publications.
Browse previous Holcim Foundation Awards cycles to explore how architecture, engineering, urban planning, and the building industry contribute to a more sustainable future.
Five Holcim Foundation Awards Gold winners champion approaches ranging from adaptive reuse and material circularity to participatory design and cooperative business models. Fifteen further prizes awarded, illustrating the breadth of diverse and innovative real-world approaches to creating a more sustainable built environment.
The Holcim Foundation Awards 2023 have recognised outstanding projects that demonstrate innovative, real-world approaches to transforming the built environment. From the vibrant streets of Madrid to heritage conservation in China, the winners – sharing USD 1 million in prize money – highlight global momentum for holistic design and construction that advances sustainable development.
Barbara Buser (left), baubüro in situ, Basel and Zurich, Switzerland receives the Global Holcim Awards Gold trophy as a member of the winning team for Extending the Cycle in Switzerland from Hashim Sarkis, Head of the Global Holcim Awards jury 2021
The issue of sustainability is of paramount importance in construction. In view of climate change and diminishing resources, new approaches are needed along the entire value chain of the construction industry as the building sector moves toward net-zero emissions and circular material flows.
Global LafargeHolcim Awards 2018 winners at the handover event in Mexico City (l-r): Bronze – Eric Mahoney and Constance Bodurow, studio[Ci], USA; Gold – Loreta Castro, Taller Capital and Manuel Perló, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico; and Silver – Mariam Kamara, Atelier Masomi, Niger and Yasaman Esmaili, Studio Chahar, Iran.
The 5th International LafargeHolcim Awards attracted more than 5,000 projects and visions in sustainable construction to be implemented in 131 countries. 1,836 projects passed the formal and quality checks and were assessed by independent juries in five regions of the world.
UVA de La Imaginación designed by Colectivo720 for EPM Group (Empresas Públicas de Medellín) won the Global Holcim Awards Gold 2015. The project in Medellín, Colombia, centers on creating high quality public spaces inserted into low-income, dense neighborhoods at a reservoir where two giant water tanks have been replaced by new infrastructure.
All three Global Awards winners in 2015 recognize architectural interventions that deliver tangible benefits to local communities: Turning a decommissioned water reservoir into a park in Medellín, rebuilding social fabric through a community library in Ambepussa following Sri Lanka’s civil war, and creating public zones and flood-protection for the island of Manhattan.
The secondary school in Gando village, Burkina Faso by Kéré Architecture won the Holcim Awards Gold 2012. The project uses traditional building materials and technologies and places great emphasis on actively involving the local population in the construction process. Locally-sourced clay is mixed with aggregates and cement to cast walls on-site based on a two-piece formwork.
A school project in Gando, Burkina Faso; a multifunctional community center in São Paulo, Brazil; and an urban renewal plan in Berlin, Germany are the winners of the Global Holcim Awards for 2012. The finalists were the regional Holcim Awards 2011 winning projects that had been selected from more than 6,000 entries in 146 countries.
The Holcim Award Gold 2009 aims to revitalize the heavily polluted and neglected River Fez. The urban plan by Bureau EAST returns to this ancient heart its dynamic soul so that the Moroccan city’s renewal and improved life quality will follow.
Four Global Holcim Awards were announced in 2009 for a river remediation scheme in Morocco, a greenfield university campus in Vietnam, a rural planning strategy in China, and a shelter for day laborers in the USA. A series of prize-handovers were held at the site of each project to celebrate the winners and their highly-acclaimed examples of sustainable construction. Almost 5,000 sustainable construction projects and visions from 121 countries entered the five regional Holcim Awards competitions in 2008.
One of the two projects that won a Holcim Award Gold 2006 is a plan to improve the shanty village of San Rafael-Unido in Caracas, Venezuela by Proyectos Arqui. (l-r): Isabel Cecilia Pocaterra, Victor Eduardo Gastier, Silvia Soonets & Maria Inés Pocaterra.
The first Holcim Foundation Awards cycle concluded in Bangkok with 700 guests from over 50 countries celebrating innovative projects. Global Gold, Silver, and Bronze prizes went to entries from Venezuela, Germany, Italy, and Canada – selected from over 3,000 submissions that showcased the full spectrum of sustainable construction.
Read an overview of the Awards competition per cycle including key figures, winners video, media release and further publications.
Browse previous Holcim Awards winners by cycle or region for an insight into sustainable construction around the globe.
List the independent experts who have evaluated entries in the Holcim Awards competition, and filter by cycle or region.
View the images and videos that showcase previous Holcim Awards prize winners from all regions.