LafargeHolcim Awards winners Joana Dabaj and Riccardo Luca Conti from CatalyticAction highlighted the importance of ethical standards and social inclusion at the Strelka “Future Architect” Conference in Moscow, Russia. The winners of the LafargeHolcim Awards Bronze 2017 for Middle East Africa explained how their work not only addressed sustainable design from the perspective of building materials – but also created opportunities to empower local communities.

The energy and raw materials used to create a building are substantial, so finding ways to extend building life or reuse materials are becoming a critical element of the sustainability of design. The architects reused a pavilion from Expo15 in Milan as a school where no permanent structures are permitted. The intervention greatly improves the living conditions in a refugee settlement in Lebanon.

As one of the three main LafargeHolcim Awards winners for Middle East Africa in 2017, “Pavilion Re-claimed” automatically qualified as a finalist in the Global LafargeHolcim Awards 2018. All 15 finalist project teams were asked to submit an updated and more comprehensive entry that was evaluated by a global jury in March 2018.

View project entry posters – Global Holcim Awards

The results of the global phase of the 5th LafargeHolcim Awards competition were announced on March 28, 2018.

Read full media release – Global LafargeHolcim Awards 2018

Sustainability in building is rapidly gaining significance in the Middle East Africa region – particularly among female professionals and young graduates in architecture and engineering. This was clearly seen at the prize-handover ceremony for the regional Holcim Awards in Nairobi, Kenya. The majority of the 11 prize-winning projects dealt with education and the contemporary promotion of traditional manual skills.

After the 2015 Milan Expo, the collaborators of the project repurposed the “Save the Children” pavilion to build a school for Syrian refugee children in the Jarahieh Informal Tented Settlement in the El Marj, Lebanon – an afterlife that could not have been more fitting. The pavilion was disassembled, shipped, and reassembled in a new configuration centered around an internal courtyard. Local residents were involved both in adapting the pavilion’s design to its new site and use as well as in the construction process. The wool from sheep – a waste product in the region – was used for insulation, a technique which has found resonance with the settlement’s inhabitants who are now employing it for their own homes. By reusing a temporary structure for a humanitarian purpose, the project contributes to sustainability through re-appropriation and calls attention to the opportunity for architectural structures to be reused beyond their originally intended purpose.

The jury was greatly moved by the project’s contribution to the ongoing humanitarian crisis of Syrian refugees and the ingenious reinvention of the pavilion as a school. Within a context lacking basic infrastructure the project provides not only space for education, but also a dignified environment that is a source of pride for the community who helped to build it. Through the use of what would otherwise be material waste (i.e., both the pavilion and the wool insulation), the school is the impressive result of limited means and resources. The project is an implicit critique of the high-design, short lifecycle model of grand exhibition events and offers a potent template for future application.

A participatory process as catalyst for positive impact in the lives of the communities

The design was tailored around an interdisciplinary approach between the different stakeholders, having the community at the core of the process. CatalyticAction (CA) engaged with the children, teachers and family members in the ideation, design and construction of the project. Conceptual planning started with children participating in envisioning exercises that directly informed the design; they had the opportunity to be decision makers. By creating a community project through an inclusive approach, CA aims at improving social cohesion within the settlement and the neighboring Lebanese communities. The inclusive approach adopted succeeded in generating livelihood opportunities, capacity building, empowering women and children, boosting local economies and enhancing community resilience.