Holcim Foundation Awards Winners Highlight Best Practice in Sustainable Design

The Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction has announced 20 winning projects for the 2025 Holcim Foundation Awards, spanning Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and North America. With a prize pool of USD 1 million, the Awards are among the world’s most significant and generous honors in sustainable architecture.

The Awards recognize sustainability across all scales, from an intimate 200-square-meter semi-permanent school in a Kenyan forest to large and mega-scale urban regeneration projects serving millions of people in cities such as Madrid, Dhaka, and Shenzhen.

All winners will be showcased at a prestigious event in Venice on November 20, 2025, which will be streamed globally. Attended by many of the design and construction industry’s most important names, the event’s marquee moments will be the announcements of the five regional Grand Prizes, selected by the Awards’ distinguished juries. 

Laura Viscovich, Executive Director of the Holcim Foundation, says the winning entries, which were required upon entry to be in development, but not complete, provide a modern definition of best practice in sustainable design.

Sustainable Design in Action

Across 20 winning projects, distinct trends emerge that demonstrate the construction sector's evolving approach to environmental, social, and economic challenges:

Resilient Infrastructure Working With and For Nature

Award-winner Moakley Park in Boston, USA uses berms and restored marshes for protective water infiltration, highlighting how resilient design now involves embracing water rather than simply resisting it. Likewise, in flood-prone Porto Alegre, Brazil, another winner, a school designed by Andrade Morettin Arquitetos (pictured below), elevates classrooms above ground level and utilizes the rooftop as an emergency shelter. Winning projects in Madrid, Spain, and Medellín, Colombia, showcase the positive impact of ecological restoration, with the Spanish capital’s The Southern River Parks being an urban-scale example of using intelligent landscape design to counter desertification in the face of climate change.

Design as a Healing Tool

The Awards revealed architecture’s emerging role as a healing tool in regions affected by war and instability. Winning entry, Art-Tek Tulltorja in Pristina, Kosovo (pictured below), transforms a former brick factory into a vibrant meeting place, demonstrating how construction can contribute to community recovery while addressing heritage preservation in fragile territories. Another winner, Qalandiya in the Palestinian Territories, shows how incremental village restoration can honor the past while strengthening cultural identity and reducing construction carbon footprint. Healing also rhymes with restoring what already exists: in Bangladesh, the conservation and adaptive reuse development of the Old Dhaka Central Jail is recast as an urban oasis that provides much-needed civic space.

Low-carbon, Circular Approaches

Climate action and low-carbon design were also dominant themes in the winning entries. The Buffalo Crossing Visitor Centre in Winnipeg, Canada, a Passive House-certified gateway to a restored quarry site, demonstrates that achieving ultra-low-carbon status is possible through the use of innovative materials and passive design strategies. Brookside Secondary School in Asaba, Nigeria (pictured below), utilizes concrete frames infilled with locally crafted brick walls, demonstrating that hybrid approaches can deliver both structural performance and significantly reduced embodied carbon. Winning project Healing Through Design - a Kintsugi-inspired Health Center in Bengaluru showcases the value of low-tech circularity: locally sourced, recycled materials and native planting form a living, green facade.

New Grand Prize Format

2025 introduces a Grand Prize in each region (replacing the former ranking of Gold, Silver and Bronze) to honor excellence without diminishing other approaches. The Foundation’s four goals - Uplifting Places, Healthy Planet, Thriving Communities, and Viable Economics - along with guiding principles (Holistic, Transformational, Transferable) continue to steer juries, which for the 2025 cycle, were chaired by Sou Fujimoto (APAC), Kjetil Trædal Thorsen (EU), Sandra Barclay (LATAM), Lina Ghotmeh (MEA), and Jeanne Gang (NAM).

“We moved from the familiar Gold–Silver–Bronze structure to a system that recognizes the best in class in each region through a Grand Prize award,” explained Viscovich. 

“This evolution reflects our commitment to celebrating the full diversity of excellent responses without diminishing any approach. Rather than ranking projects against each other, we place them all in an equal spotlight and then use the Grand Prize to highlight those the jury found demonstrated the greatest impact.”

Prize Structure

Each of the 20 winning projects receives USD 40,000, recognizing their outstanding contributions to sustainable construction. Additionally, one project from each of the five global regions will be honored with a Grand Prize, receiving an extra USD 40,000—bringing their total award to USD 80,000.

These five regional Grand Prize winners, representing the most impactful projects from Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and North America, will be announced at the Awards ceremony in Venice on November 20, 2025.

While all winners are celebrated equally for their excellence, the Grand Prize highlights those projects that the juries determined demonstrate the greatest transformative potential for advancing sustainable construction globally.

Watch the Awards Ceremony Livestream on Thursday, November 20, 2025 15:00 UTC | 23:00 Singapore | 16:00 Venice | 15:00 London | 10:00 New York.

Register for Live Stream

Asia Pacific

• Gelephu Mindfulness City - Gelephu, Bhutan | BIG – BJARKE INGELS GROUP
  A bold design in Bhutan integrates spiritual values, passive design, and renewable energy into a large-scale urban plan. Shaped by the landscape and local materials, it aims to set a global benchmark for sustainable urban planning and development.
• Healing Through Design - Bengaluru, India | THE AGAMI PROJECT / A THRESHOLD
  A compact health center in Bengaluru uses recycled stone and timber, passive cooling, and community-led design to form a vibrant, inclusive hub for healing, culture, and social resilience.
• Old Dhaka Central Jail Conservation - Dhaka, Bangladesh | FORM.3 ARCHITECTS
  A historic jail site in central Dhaka is reimagined as a vibrant public space, blending adaptive reuse, passive cooling strategies, and local craft to deliver a culturally rooted, economically viable model for sustainable urban renewal.
• Pingshan River Blueway Landscape - Shenzhen, China | SASAKI ASSOCIATES
  A 40km river corridor in Shenzhen is transformed into a biodiverse public landscape, integrating passive measures to reduce the urban heat island (UHI) effect, material reuse, and regional cultural heritage to create a flood-resilient, inclusive urban greenway.

Europe

• Art-Tek Tulltorja - Pristina, Kosovo | RAFI SEGAL A+U, OFFICE OF URBAN DRAFTERS, ORG PERMANENT MODERNITY, STUDIO REV
  A former brick factory in Prishtina is reimagined as a creative and tech program, combining clean energy, circular construction, and community-led programming to drive cultural, social, and economic regeneration in post-conflict Kosovo.
• School in Gaüses - Girona, Spain | TED'A ARQUITECTES
  A rural school in Catalonia built from local earth, timber, and tile rethinks education through sustainability, turning its forested site into a space where children learn by doing—inside and out.
• The Crafts College - Herning, Denmark | DORTE MANDRUP
  A vocational campus uses recycled materials, passive design, and shared public space to connect education with sustainable building and craft, offering students a hands-on model for learning by making.
• The Southern River Parks - Madrid, Spain | ALDAYJOVER ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE
  A large-scale restoration of Madrid’s southern riverbanks turns degraded land into resilient green infrastructure, using native planting, water reuse, and community-led design to address climate, biodiversity, and social challenges.

Latin America

• Barrio Chacarita Alta Housing - Asunción, Paraguay | MOS ARCHITECTS & ADAMO FAIDEN
  An innovative social housing project in Asunción’s Chacarita Alta district upgrades an informal settlement through resident participation, providing safe, affordable homes and transforming a polluted ravine into vibrant public spaces and pathways.
• Origin: The Reunion with the Lost Gardens - Medellín, Colombia | CONNATURAL
  Shaping a new landscape in Medellín, the project removes an obsolete concrete structure to uncover a buried creek. Integrating urban farming, water gardens, and outdoor classrooms, it reconnects a university campus with its natural hydrology.
• Schools for Flood-Prone Areas - Porto Alegre, Brazil | ANDRADE MORETTIN ARQUITETOS ASSOCIADOS, SAUERMARTINS
  A Brazilian public school is redesigned to act as a multi-level refuge during annual floods, ensuring vital shelter for the local community, whilst offering a unique architecture that acts as a learning tool in itself.
• Sesc Parque Dom Pedro II - São Paulo, Brazil | UNA ARQUITETOS
  In central São Paulo, a derelict triangular lot wedged between highways and a river is reborn as a vibrant community center for the city’s underserved downtown population.

Middle East & Africa

• Brookside Secondary School - Asaba, Nigeria | STUDIO CONTRA
  A school harnessing locally crafted, low-carbon clay bricks revives nearly lost artisanal skills, whilst providing economic opportunities for the area.
• Qalandiya: The Green Historic Maze - Qalandiya, Palestinian Territory | RIWAQ – CENTRE FOR ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION
  An incremental restoration project looks to revive a fragile historic village, honoring vernacular architecture, championing community engagement, optimizing ecological rehabilitation, and highlighting adaptive reuse.
• Waldorf School - Nairobi, Kenya | URKO SÁNCHEZ ARCHITECTS
  A semi-permanent primary school campus in Nairobi's forest poetically merges classrooms with nature, utilizing modular, earth-filled walls and lightweight roofs.
• Zando Central Market - Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo | THINK TANK ARCHITECTURE
  Redeveloping Kinshasa’s central market, this project provides safe, comfortable, shaded stalls for 20,000 vendors using passive design, breathable brick façades, and open concrete structures.

North America

• Buffalo Crossing Visitor Centre - Winnipeg, MB, Canada | STANTEC ARCHITECTURE
  A net-zero visitor centre in Winnipeg reconnecting communities to reclaimed landscapes, drawing on Indigenous design collaboration, and passive strategies.
• Lawson Centre for Sustainability - Toronto, ON, Canada | MECANOO ARCHITECTEN
  A climate-conscious urban infill education hub at Toronto’s Trinity College is deploying passive design strategies that foster community, circularity, and ecological restoration.
• Moakley Park - Boston, MA, United States | STOSS LANDSCAPE URBANISM
  A community-led waterfront park in Boston that integrates restored marshes, stormwater management, adaptive landscapes, and native plantings to create a resilient and inclusive public space.
• Portland International Airport Main Terminal - Portland, OR, United States | ZGF
  A sustainably expanded airport terminal with locally sourced materials, passive daylighting, and community-informed design.

We'll share full project details, photos, and films on November 20, 2025, following our Awards Ceremony.

About the Holcim Foundation

The Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction is an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to support people who are change accelerators for sustainable construction. In addition to its flagship Awards program, the Foundation partners with academics and industry-leading practitioners to create educational opportunities and organizes events to facilitate the exchange of ideas and best practices.

The Holcim Foundation believes that a number of interdependent goals and principles for sustainable construction must be understood, mainstreamed, and implemented to succeed in building a better world.

Our Definition of Sustainable Design and Construction

Breakthrough ideas and solutions are needed to accelerate the construction industry’s transformation at speed and scale. These innovative solutions must be transferable to the entire sector to drive further impact. Furthermore, all sustainable building and infrastructure projects must address four interdependent goals with equal conviction:

• Healthy Planet: Structures that minimize resource use, avoid emissions, and embed solutions to repair ecosystems and restore biodiversity.
• Viable Economics: Financial planning that combines short term project feasibility with long term circular value creation.
• Thriving Communities: Inclusive and affordable living environments that cultivate equity, health and well-being.
• Uplifting Places: Beautiful and spatially relevant structures that work in unison with the local context and culture.

Media Contact: info@holcimfoundation.org