Industrial Architecture: For Efficiency and Well-Being

Holcim Awards Webinars continue with winners from the USA and Vietnam

Industrial Architecture: Prioritizing Efficiency and Well-Being

Holcim Awards Webinars continue with winners from the USA and Vietnam

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    Holcim Awards Webinar #3 SoMe

    Find out how sustainable design can inform unique approaches, tailored to context, that illustrate a new paradigm for industrial architecture.

The third Holcim Awards Webinar asks what are the key issues with industrial architecture today? Do businesses see profit and well-being equally and simultaneously? Find out more about how sustainable design is applied in the rehabilitation of a century-old building in Seattle, USA and remarkably improved factory conditions in Vietnam.

Last updated: March 12, 2024 Zurich, Switzerland

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.

Post-Covid Factory in Vietnam

A productive factory: building module - sustainability details.

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.

Maritime Innovation Center in USA

At night, the polycarbonate cladding allows the building to glow from within.

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