A decommissioned water reservoir turned public park in Colombia has scooped the top prize in a global awards competition for sustainable building and construction.
The ‘Articulated Site’ project, designed by Mario Camargo and Luis Tombé of Colectivo720, with Juan Calle and Horacio Valencia of EPM Group, took the US$200,000 (€187,201, £134,517) Gold prize in the 2015 Holcim Awards.
Located around a series of water tanks in Medellín, an outdoor auditorium and venues for a range of community activities were created, highlighting the value of water as an important resource of urban life.
Silver was awarded to the ‘Post War Collective’ community library project in Sri Lanka, designed by Milinda Pathiraja and Ganga Ratnayake of Robust Architecture Workshop, which seeks to reintegrate soldiers into post-war society. Discharged individuals were coached in building techniques during the construction of the library, in the rural town of Ambepussa near Colombo. A US$100,000 (€93,600, £67,258) prize was awarded.
Bjarke Ingels Group’s
‘Dryline’ project in New York took Bronze, and a prize of US$50,000 (€46,800, £33,629). A large-scale integrated flood protection system was created to address the vulnerability of New York City to coastal flooding, while a series of public spaces were added.
The Holcim Awards competition is run every three years by the Swiss-based Holcim Foundation, and this is the fourth edition. More than 6,000 entries were received for projects across 152 countries.
The international jury was led by Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University in the US. Winners were selected from the 15 projects which had been awarded the top prizes in the five regional Holcim Awards competitions in 2014.
“The competition sheds light on the way people live in different regions of the world and celebrates their specific ambition to live better lives,” said jury member Meisa Batayneh Maani, of Maisam Architects and Engineers in Jordan. “By doing so, the Holcim Awards disseminates information, showing the world what’s going on.”
