The Holcim Foundation has held its prize-giving ceremony for the Holcim Awards 2014 North America, recognising 13 projects with a total prize money of US$330 000. The ceremony took place in Toronto, Canada, and was hosted by 2008 award winner Evergreen Brick Works.

A jury of independent, international experts selected the winners. This was hosted by the MIT and included: Toshiko Mori (Head of jury, USA); Marc Angélil (Switzerland); Alain Bourguignon (UK); Dana Cuff (USA); Guillaume Habert (Switzerland); Mark Jarzombek (USA); Jeffrey Laberge (Canada); Lola Sheppard (Canada), and Sarah Whiting (USA).

Main category

Gold: The Poreform project by Amy Mielke and Caitlin Taylor, Water Pore Partnership, involves the development of a water absorptive surface and subterranean basin that captures rain runoff, thereby adding more than 75 000 megalitres to Las Vegas’ water supply capacity.

“While designed for a specific site, the project offers a welcome answer to the general problem of water scarcity – a straightforward, but nonetheless beautiful proposition for a global challenge,” said jury member Mark Jarzombek.

Silver: The Rebuilding by Design project aims to limit the impact of future storms and coastal flooding via a raised berm and sequence of public spaces along the water’s edge in New York City. Architects Bjarke Ingels and Kai-Uwe Bergmann, BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, led the consortium that developed the project.

Bronze: The Hi-Fi project picked up the Bronze Award. This involves a zero-carbon structure comprising reflective bricks that was designed by David Benjamin and the Living Architecture Lab and commissioned by the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program.

Acknowledgement prizes

  • Chrysanthemum Building: Affordable residential urban infill development, by Sheila Kennedy and J. Frano Violich of Kennedy & Violich Architecture.
  • Heritage Reframed: University building renovation and extension, by Nader Tehrani and Katherine Faulkner of NADAA.
  • Divining LA: Digital tool for urban design and water-use planning, by Peter and Hadley Arnold of the Arid Lands Institute.
  • In-Closure: Public park and interactive wall for urban revival, by Etienne Feher, Paul Azzopardi and Noé Basch of ABF-lab Architects.

Next generation prizes

Due to the high quality of submissions, this year six projects were recognised in Holcim’s ‘Next Generation’ category for the first time.

  • 1st – Trash for Use: Municipal center for harvesting utility from waste, by Debbie Chen.
  • 2nd – Machine Landscape: Coal mining sites for hydro-pump electricity storage, by Kenya Endo of Atelier Dreiseitl Asia.
  • 3rd – Pleura Pod: Air purification wall transforming carbon dioxide into oxygen, by Beomki Lee, Suk Lee and Daeho Lee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • 4th – Timber-Link: Interlocking panelized timber building system, by Jonathan Enns of Enns Design/solidoperations.
  • 5th – Evolutionary Infrastructure: Adaptive reuse of a parking structure for cultural activities, by Mark Turibius Jongman-Sereno, Harvard University, Mira Irawan, New York University, and David O’Brien, Iowa State University.
  • 6th – Latex Formwork: Concrete wall panel construction method, by Namjoo Kim, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Further information about the winning projects can be found at www.holcimfoundation.org.


Adapted from press release by