This innovative approach won the Holcim Awards Bronze 2005 for North America and uses engineered fabric molds to cast reinforced concrete elements with complex warped sections. The project demonstrates a practical method of moving beyond the box section for structural members, with several advantages: achieving ideal structural efficiency, conserving material, and minimizing the dead weight of structural elements – all of which supports economy of construction. Fabric-formed concrete have since been used on projects in Canada, the United States, Chile, and Puerto Rico.
 Read project overview – Material Reduction - Efficient Fabric-Formed Concrete, Winnipeg, Canada
Definition – Economic performance and compatibility – “Prosperity”
The project must prove to be economically feasible and innovative as far as the deployment of financial resources is concerned. Funding must promote an economy of means and be compatible with the demands and constraints encountered throughout the construction’s life span.
- Innovative models for financing.
- Financial resources over the project's life cycle and their regional impact.
- Flexibility with regard to future changes (user, ownership, laws and regulations).
- Robustness to economic conditions (interest rates, taxes, inflation).
- Economy of resources deployed in construction.
Through efficiency of design, construction, maintenance, operation, reuse, and recycling, sustainable construction seeks feasible projects that provide long-term economic benefits for owners, users, and communities. Such benefits can take many forms besides profits or lower costs, for example: strengthening the economic base of a region, boosting the local economy, giving residents more control over their housing costs, or even giving people a financial base.
Innovative deployment of financial resources, durability, adaptability, lifecycle cost planning, ‘free’ low-tech natural resources, and other attributes can work together to make sustainable construction not only financially feasible but the preferred choice and a sound long-term investment in the future.
 | Example – River remediation and urban development scheme, Fez, Morocco
This holistically conceived project patches essential urban fabric and foresees improvements that are at once social, cultural, environmental, technical, urbanistic, and economic.
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 | Example – Urban integration of an informal area, Colombia
The unique strength of the project lies in its comprehensive approach to reducing slum formation in the urban context by minimizing poverty, providing education and improving environmental sustainability.
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