Solutions in Sustainable Construction

The secondary school project uses traditional building materials and technologies and places great emphasis on actively involving the local population in the construction process. Locally-sourced clay is mixed with aggregates and cement to cast walls on-site based on a two-piece formwork. The school is exemplary in terms of its successful approach to the adaptive use of building materials, community development, climatic mitigation and aesthetics.

The Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction joined forces with the Norman Foster Foundation to support a workshop dedicated to housing. This workshop offered a platform for the next generation of researchers and practitioners to meet in a week-long laboratory to explore how to rematerialise housing in the long term.

Aggregates are ubiquitous in the concrete production industry, yet are rarely deployed in an unbound form. This materials research project examines aggregate architectures made from designed injection-molded granulates which self-solidify. This pilot project for a ground-breaking construction method uses the potential of loose, designed granulates that can interlock and consequently require no additional binding agent; fully recyclable and adaptable to almost any site constraints.