The regional Holcim Awards 2014 winners for North America

Following the European announcement, the North American regional winners for the Holcim Awards 2014 were recognized at a recent ceremony at Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto, Canada (which is also a 2008 Holcim Awards prize-winning project).

The international jury led by Toshiko Mori (USA) highlighted 13 projects from across the U.S. and Canada, which altogether received US$330,000 in prize money. Winners were selected for their design responses to “target issues” for sustainable construction regarding environmental, social, and economic performance – as well as architectural excellence and feasibility.

Winning projects include those by students, emerging professionals, and leading practitioners -- with some familiar names like BIG, the "Hy-Fi" by The Living's David Benjamin, Sheila Kennedy of KVA MATx, and NADAAA.

The Holcim Awards Gold, Silver and Bronze winners in each region automatically qualify for the Global Holcim Awards 2015.

See all the winning projects below.

HOLCIM AWARDS GOLD 2014: Poreform: Water absorptive surface and subterranean basin, Las Vegas, NV, USA
Main authors: Amy Mielke, Water Pore Partnership, New York, NY, USA; Caitlin Gucker-Kanter Taylor, Water Pore Partnership, Woodbridge, VA, USA
Further Author: Keller Easterling - Yale University, New Haven, USA

"Poreform, a water absorptive surface and subterranean basin that captures rain runoff and adds over 75,000 megaliters (20 billion gallons) to the water supply capacity of Las Vegas won the top prize. Designers Amy Mielke and Caitlin Taylor of Water Pore Partnership (USA) reposition water infrastructure as a civic project. Capable of rapid saturation and slow release, the flood-control pores of this “urban skin” are inlets to a new infrastructure that reframes water as a valuable resource rather than a liability.  

At the prize handover event in Toronto, jury member Mark Jarzombek praised the Holcim Awards Gold winning project for developing infrastructure as an architectural undertaking that is reclaimed as a truly public matter of concern, balancing social and design imperatives. '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,' he said."

For further project info, click here.

HOLCIM AWARDS SILVER 2014 - North America: Rebuilding by Design: Urban flood protection infrastructure, New York, NY, USA
Main Authors: Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Christoffersen, Kai-Uwe Bergmann, Daniel Kidd and Jeremy Siegel, BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group; Laura Starr, Stephen Whitehouse, Andrea Parker and Melon Wedick, Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects & Planners; James Lima, James Lima Planning + Development; Steven Baumgartner, Buro Happold Engineering and Byron Stigge, Level Agency for Infrastructure, all New York, NY, USA; Matthijs Bouw and Ivo de Jeu, One Architecture, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Further Authors: Christina Kaunzinger - Green Shield Ecology, Bridgewater, USA; Edgar J. Westerhof - ARCADIS; Daniel Payne - AEA Consulting, Beacon, USA; Prem Krishnamurthy - Project Projects, New York, New York, USA

"The Rebuilding by Design project that addresses New York City’s vulnerability to coastal flooding by using a raised berm and sequence of public spaces along the water’s edge won the Holcim Awards Silver. The 13km (8 mi) long infrastructural barrier to mitigate the impact of future storms with the devastating force of Hurricane Sandy was designed by a consortium led by architects Bjarke Ingels and Kai-Uwe Bergmann of BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group (Denmark/USA). The jury acknowledged the project’s sensitive blend of hard infrastructure and local community needs."

For further project info, click here.

HOLCIM AWARDS BRONZE 2014 - North America: Hy-Fi: Zero carbon emissions compostable structure, New York, NY, USA
Main author: David Benjamin, The Living architecture lab, New York, NY, USA
Further Authors: Danil Nagy - The Living, New York, USA; John Locke - The Living, New York, USA; Damon Lau - The Living, New York, USA; Ray Wang - The Living, New York, USA; Jim Stoddart - The Living, New York, USA; Dale Zhao - The Living, New York, USA; Nathan Smith - The Living, New York, USA; Christo Logan - The Living, New York, USA; Dane Taeyoung - The Living, New York, USA; Matt Clark - Arup New York, New York, USA; Shaina Saporta - Arup New York, New York, USA; Eben Bayer - Ecovative Design, Green Island, USA; Sam Harrington - Ecovative Design, Green Island, USA; Gina Albanese - 3M Minnesota, Saint Paul, USA; Kristal Reid - 3M Minnesota, Saint Paul, USA; Byron Trotter - 3M Minnesota, Saint Paul, USA

"A cluster of circular towers formed using reflective bricks, designed for and commissioned by the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program for construction in New York City received the Holcim Awards Bronze. The structure by David Benjamin of The Living architecture lab (USA) uses recent advances in biotechnology combined with cutting-edge computation and engineering to create new building materials that are almost fully organically-grown and compostable. The jury applauded the investigatory nature of the project, both in terms of its objective to research innovative construction materials and their architectural potential using organic bricks, made of a combination of corn stalks and fungal organisms."

For further project info, click here.

• ACKNOWLEDGEMENT PRIZES for projects in Toronto, Seattle, Boston and Los Angeles: Architects Nader Tehrani and Katherine Faulkner of NADAAA in Boston received an Acknowledgement prize for the renovation and extension of the University of Toronto’s John H Daniels building, a culturally significant nineteenth century structure in the center of Toronto (Further project details). Further Acknowledgement prizes went to a public park and interactive wall for urban revival in Seattle by Paris-based ABF-lab architects whose master plan reintroduces a forest in the heart of the city (Further project details); to Sheila Kennedy and J Frano Violich of Kennedy & Violich Architecture of Boston for the Chrysanthemum Building, an affordable residential urban infill development in Boston (Further project details); and to Peter and Hadley Arnold of the Arid Lands Institute, Woodbury University for Divining LA, a digital tool for urban design and water-use planning in Los Angeles (Further project details).

• The Holcim Awards competition also seeks visions and bold ideas in the “NEXT GENERATION” category. The jury decided to confer an unprecedented six prizes in recognition of the outstanding quality of submissions from across North America. The “Next Generation” 1st prize went to Debbie Chen (USA) for a municipal center for harvesting utility from waste in New York City. The jury greatly appreciated the idea to conceive a new type of urban infrastructure that offers an answer to the problematic interplay of material flows in urban environments.
  The “Next Generation” 2nd prize was presented to Kenya Endo of Atelier Dreiseitl Asia (Singapore) for a proposal to utilize former coal mining sites for hydro-pump electricity storage in Greene County, Pennsylvania. The 3rd prize was awarded to Beomki Lee, Suk Lee and Daeho Lee, students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), for an air purification wall that transforms carbon dioxide into oxygen and explores the possibilities of bio-mimicry.
  Additional “Next Generation” prizes were awarded to Jonathan Enns from Toronto for an interlocking panelized timber building system (4th); a group of students led by Mark Turibius Jongman-Sereno, Harvard University for an adaptive reuse of a parking structure for cultural activities in San Francisco (5th); and Namjoo Kim at MIT for a new construction method for creating thin concrete panels. (6th)

Holcim Awards submissions for projects in North America were evaluated by an independent jury hosted by the MIT and included: Toshiko Mori (Head of jury, USA), Marc Angélil (Switzerland), Alain Bourguignon (United Kingdom), Dana Cuff (USA), Guillaume Habert (Switzerland), Mark Jarzombek (USA), Jeffrey Laberge (Canada), Lola Sheppard (Canada), and Sarah Whiting (USA).

All images courtesy of the Holcim Foundation.

Check out the Acknowledgement Prizes and "Next Generation" Prizes are in the image gallery below.

See the European regional winners.