Winners of the Holcim Awards for sustainable construction projects and visions from Asia Pacific have been announced, bringing the regional phase of the 3rd International Holcim Awards competition to a close. A total of USD 300,000 was presented to twelve groundbreaking projects at a ceremony in Singapore. The winning projects show how sustainable approaches to infrastructure for communities and innovative architecture can improve the built environment and enhance quality of life.

The jury is convinced by this remarkable project due to its visionary and strategic approach. It advocates bicycling as a powerful alternative for urban transit and recalls its well proven potential in the world’s former bicycling capital. The visionary idea is shown to integrate pollution reduction and energy saving solutions into existing structures while addressing the urgency of implementing different approaches to urban transit – here and in other cities of the world. Moreover it demonstrates how residual central spaces may be occupied with beneficial and sophisticated design solutions in function, embedded systems and aesthetics that are well integrated. This “out-of-the-box” thinking sends a message to all developing metropolitan areas and provokes a process of rethinking by contemporary urban planners.

Like many rapidly-growing cities with a prospering society, Beijing faces significant problems caused by rapid growth in private automobile traffic – and a further 1,800 cars are added to the city’s streets every day. The Auto-Mobile Beijing project aims to reestablish a bicycle culture in the former “bicycle kingdom” providing the potential to be a model for other cities with similar conditions. On the theoretical level the project aspires to create a trendsetting new bicycle avant-garde by incorporating lifestyle components with a practical mode of transportation which makes bicycle use a desirable alternative.