Holcim Awards 2023: Round-up in Venice with the jury chairs
This year’s competition is now over. Out of 2,380 registrants from 114 countries, 20 entries stood above the rest. So what were the big takeaways? Who showed the most ambition? The five jury chairs are here to tell.
Paul Finch, World Architecture Festival: The tastemaker (Part 2)
How does the architecture we praise today square up with a sustainability mandate? Do green imperatives dampen the spirit at the drawing board or can they lift design excellence to new heights?
Paul Finch, World Architecture Festival: The tastemaker (Part 1)
How does the architecture we praise today square up with a sustainability mandate? Do green imperatives dampen the spirit at the drawing board or can they lift design excellence to new heights?
Nina Maritz, Nina Maritz Architects: The frugality champion
Can necessity unlock greater innovation? How to create an architecture of delight and renown when the climate is harsh, resources are scarce and budgets tight? Can less ever become something more?
Ambrish Arora, Studio Lotus: The reflective practitioner
Could a universal process account for all things sustainable — energy, materiality, comfort, etc. — in all typologies, from resorts to low-cost buildings? Would this work in a land as vast and complex as India?
Tatiana Bilbao, Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO: The architect of care
Buildings offer shelter. Good architecture does more: it is a form of care for the mind and spirit. So how do we ensure sustainable equitable care for everyone, all social and emotional needs included?
Benny Kuriakose, Benny Kuriakose & Associates: The vernacularist
There is wisdom in the vernacular. But does this knowledge offer something more than feel-good nostalgia? Are traditional buildings models for low-impact architecture that must be emulated?
The heat is on: Pressing ahead with a third season of ten new episodes
The climate crisis is here. Extreme weather is perturbing all lives rapidly across the world. How should buildings and cities respond? Should action be rooted in science or vernacular know-how? Or maybe both?
Looking back at season 2 from the cutting floor
Season 2 of Ecogradia has come to an end. Before we move on, let’s take a peek at some of the talking points that didn’t make the cut in the last ten episodes. Here is what was left ‘unsaid’.
Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell, WOHA: (Re)Defining beauty
Can sustainable buildings be both high-performing and beautiful? In the age of social media, image is king. Is our appetite for novel forms at odds with our goals for better performance?
Alyssa-Amor Gibbons, Studio Amor: Standing up to hurricanes
Extreme weather is often a matter of life and death. How do we design for the growing frequency and ferocity of storms? Do we resist at all costs or should we build structures that give in a little to save the whole?
Prasoon Kumar, BillionBricks: Innovating homes for the homeless
More than a billion people are without shelter today. They could be 3 billion by 2050. Is the growing demand a giant opportunity? What if houses for those in need could produce both renewable energy and long-term profits?
Daliana Suryawinata and Florian Heinzelmann, SHAU: Being tropical
Tropical architecture: is it a perspective on place or a question of performance? How can architects from nations along the equator, like Indonesia, draw on local know-how rather than imported technology?
Bill Browning, Terrapin Bright Green: Crafting biophilic solutions
As a species, we seek closeness to nature. Designing for well-being, therefore, aims to bring nature to the heart of the built environment. But what do these ‘biophilic’ spaces feel like? And how do we set the stage to reap their benefits?
Chrisna du Plessis and Bill Reed: Regenerating life by design
Should our buildings and cities minimise harm or do ‘good’ by design? In a world already at risk, less harm is no longer enough. We must repair, regenerate and create new life. So where do we start?
Gregers Reimann, IEN Consultants: Building higher performance
What is a high-performing building? Do the two yardsticks of performance — efficiency and well-being — complement each other? If there are trade-offs, how do we prioritise?
Ashok B. Lall, Ashok B Lall Architects: Bridging the social and environmental
Can design bridge the social and the environmental? How would a building do both, effectively? Is it possible to marry beauty and wellness with intelligence and efficiency?
Ten new episodes to keep the ball rolling, starting end-January
What matters more to a sustainable future? Better buildings or better urban systems?
What do we do, where do we start, when the answer also hinges on our relationship with natural systems?
Rahul Mehrotra, Harvard University Graduate School of Design: The kinetic city
Cities are evolving, living systems. Why then do we design them as fixed and permanent? Is it time for a new theory of urbanism, better suited to the developing world, where urban space is often used in transient ways?
Manit and Sonali Rastogi, Morphogenesis: ‘An architecture of almost somewhere’
Can a building address local and global imperatives? Can it be informed by the vernacular and yet be energy efficient? Can it be locally attuned and low carbon? What would this look like, say, in a place like India?
Wolfgang Kessling, Transsolar: Low tech and low energy for high comfort
Cooling and heating consume a lot of power in buildings. But what if the answer to the question of comfort was only partly about mechanical solutions? What if we could create comfort indoors with little or even no energy?
Prashant Kapoor, IFC/World Bank: Making sense of sustainable finance
We are seeing today a newfound interest in sustainable finance. Words like Green bonds and Green mortgages are increasingly common. But what do they actually mean?
Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell, WOHA: (Re)Imagining the city
How can we fix the problem of cities today? Is density at the expense of liveability? Are human-made and natural systems — key to our survival — at odds with each other? Can design offer a solution?
Introducing Ecogradia: The sustainable architecture and urbanism podcast
Are buildings and cities doing enough? Are they rising to the challenge of an uncertain future? And are we doing what needs to be done fast enough?
