Architects praised for 'green' projects
Architectural teams from Venezuela and Germany – led by Silvia Soonets and Christoph Ingenhoven respectively – were presented with Gold Holcim Global Awards 2006 at the Shangri-la Hotel in Bangkok last night.
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Two projects from Germany and Venezuela won the top prize for "designs for sustainable development" in the Holcim Global Awards 2006, the first major green design awards in the world.
Announced in Bangkok last night, the two projects are the Main Station project from Germany by Christoph Ingenhoven and the Upgrading of San Rafael - Unido, Urban Integrating project from Venezuela by Silvia Soonets. "It was most difficult for us to judge which one was better. So we decided to give the award to both of them," said Adele Naude Santos, head of a 15-person jury that judged the awards. Both designs were community-oriented. The German project placed a railway station underground to recover land in which to create a new urban area, combining structural and landscaping aspects. The Venezuelan winner is an urban improvement project that includes social aspects of a large shanty town in Caracas. "Creative sustainable solutions with an intelligent combination of urban economics, culture and livelihood", is how the jury praised the German project. For the Venezuelan project, the jury said: "It is a landscape design with a limited budget that helps poor urban villagers to plan for their own community and infrastructure with sustainability aspects." The gold award winning projects received US$300,000 (Bt11.2 million) each. The Holcim Global Award 2006 was initiated by the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, a foundation established by the world's biggest cement business, the Holcim Group. The awards were the first since they were established in 2004. Last year the foundation announ- ced awards in five regions before unveiling the global awards yesterday. The foundation aims to promote sustainable developments and practices among architects and others in the construction industry in order to encourage energy saving and environment-friendly and society-friendly concepts. "Sustainable construction is one way to show social responsibility to a world now threatened with environmental disaster, especially from global warming. We have to do everything in our means to ease this crisis at every level, beginning in your home and your company," Klaus Toepfer, director general of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said during his keynote speech last night. Silver and bronze awards were also handed out last night. The $250,000 silver award went to a project in Italy, Waterpower-Renewal Strategy for the Mulini Valley. The $150,000 bronze award went to Greening the Infrastructure at Benny Farm, Montreal.
Kamol Sukin The Nation
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