Finding the right balance

The perennial question affecting the industrial typology is how to offer humane workspaces, whilst keeping workflows efficient. As the Fifth Industrial Revolution (Industry 5.0) emerges with increasing risks – climate and economic – finding the right balance between well-being and profit is becoming all the more critical.

Two winners at Holcim Awards 2023 – North America Silver winner, Maritime Innovation Centre, (Seattle, WA, USA) and Asia Pacific Acknowledgement Prize winner, Post-Covid Factory (Đồng Nai, Vietnam) – each present a unique approach, tailored to context, that illustrate a new paradigm for industrial architecture. We discover from these projects that the two goals are not at odds. Healthy, comfortable spaces can also reduce operational costs. The building (and, by extension, the employer) is seen, over time, as a workplace of choice.

Designing for both efficiency and wellness

The Maritime Innovation Centre rehabilitates a century-old building – a prominent landmark of Seattle’s historic commercial fishing community – into a ‘Living Building’ that is energy-positive and people-centric. Designed along with the local community, the center will serve as an incubator to bolster the region’s ‘blue-tech’ economy that promotes innovative and sustainable practices in the sector.

The Post-Covid Factory in Đồng Nai offers remarkably improved factory conditions in Vietnam, where problems were revealed during the pandemic. The building is compact and low-cost in part because it relies on passive comfort strategies, deemed better for health. Here, community farms are deployed as well-being enhancers and a nod to the site’s agricultural past.

Here’s what you can expect to learn in this webinar

• What are the key issues with industrial architecture today? Do businesses see profit and well-being equally and simultaneously?
• What design strategies and features facilitate efficiency and wellness?
• In addition to a focus on indoor environmental quality, what contextual factors need to be considered that contribute to well-being in a specific location?

Join the conversation

The conversation will be followed by a Q&A round, where you will get the opportunity to ask your most pressing questions about realizing sustainable architecture to the Holcim Awards winners.