This Holcim Awards winner shows how to turn design processes upside-down in favour of circular construction. Architects baubüro in situ and partners salvaged most of the components in this high-quality building conversion from demolition sites.

The winners of the global Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction showcase the cutting edge of approaches to sustainable design, green architecture, and materials innovation. In the 6th cycle of the world’s most significant competition for sustainable design, offering prize money totaling USD 2 million, most of the global prizewinning projects came from the Asia Pacific and Middle East Africa regions; one top prize each also went to Colombia and Switzerland. The prizes were presented at a handover ceremony at the International Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy.

Project description by regional jury

The project describes a building extension in which the added floors are designed to utilize the demolition waste from other construction sites. An industrial building in Winterthur, Switzerland will be repurposed to create a series of 12 units/studios. The design process starts with the collection and classification of building elements sourced from dismantling and demolition operations, and the identification of their potential for recycling. An external steel staircase, aluminium windows, metal corrugated sheets, roof insulation and photovoltaic modules are all salvaged from previous construction and given a second life. Steel beams are reused for the new structure, old façade stone cladding is redeployed as floor tiles.

As a Main category prize winner in the regional Holcim Awards 2020, Extending the Cycle in Switzerland automatically qualified as a finalist in the Global Holcim Awards 2021.

View Global Holcim Awards Entry – Extending the Cycle in Switzerland

The built environment has a significant role to play in addressing climate change and enabling the transition to a net-zero and more inclusive future. The Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction global winners showcase the cutting edge of approaches to sustainable design, green architecture, and materials innovation. In the 6th cycle, a project from Switzerland won the Gold Award at both the regional and global levels. The global prizes were presented at a handover ceremony at the International Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy. The regional Holcim Awards Main category winners for Europe were recognized at the same event.

Keep existing buildings and maximize the reuse of building components and materials

To address the increasing scarcity of raw materials, the large amounts of construction waste, the growing world population, and their rising demand for comfort, we face a major restructuring of the building sector.

Our project is an example that shows how the goal of a significant reduction in energy consumption and conservation of resources can be achieved: Repurposing the existing building stock rather than replacing it, is the most essential step. In our case we transformed an industrial building to an atelier building; Adding three additional stories densifies the urban environment rather than increasing land use; Reusing existing building materials saves resources and embodied carbon. This is our statement: we upcycle buildings.