Metropol Parasol has transformed Plaza de la Encarnación from a parking lot into the most famous landmark of Seville. The project unites the city’s future with its past, convincingly integrates urban, architectural, and landscape design, and injects new cultural, social, and commercial life into the medieval city center. The giant parasols, wooden structures of orthogonal ribbing, house a market hall, plaza, tapas bars, and restaurants, with rooftop terrace above and archaeological museum and metro station below. Metropol Parasol was winner of the Holcim Awards Bronze 2005 for Europe.
 Read project update – Metropol Parasol, Seville, Spain
Definition – Contextual and aesthetic impact – “Proficiency”
The project must convey a high standard of architectural quality in the way it addresses cultural and physical factors. With space and form of utmost significance, the construction must have a lasting aesthetic impact on its surrounding environment.
- Improvement of existing contextual conditions responding to the natural and human-made contexts.
- Interdependencies of landscape, infrastructure, urban fabric and architecture.
- Cautious restoration and alteration of the built environment.
- Programming strategies (use, flexibility, multiplicity of functions, change).
- Architectural quality and its aesthetic impact (space, form, light, ambiance).
Design quality is the aspect that clearly distinguishes sustainable construction from other forms of sustainable development. Visual expression and fitness of form are two essential qualities of all good architecture and planning, and these are also central to sustainable construction. This applies at all scales: land use planning, urban planning, and architectural design.
Land use planning should preserve natural areas and the inherent qualities of the landscape. Besides providing an efficient and functional infrastructure, urban planning should create spaces and places of cultural significance and social value.
Urban redevelopment projects and large public projects should heal and upgrade neighborhoods and city quarters. And architectural projects should not only meet the owner’s requirements (program), but match the physical context (site and neighborhood) and improve the local surroundings.
 | Example - Alternative Economy City in the Ex-Slaughterhouse, Rome, Italy
The project created a so-called “alternative economy city” dedicated to fair trade, ethical finance, renewable energy sources, open communication, responsible tourism, and recycling and reuse of resources.
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 | Example - Lighthouse tower with low-carbon footprint, Dubai, UAE
The concept incorporates passive cooling and light control through a responsive façade expected to halve energy consumption, integrating a great many green strategies to set a new benchmark in high-rise design.
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