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The urban, landscape, and architectural project proposes an integration of buildings, infrastructure, and community-driven housing development. The project links a shared "green" infrastructure to the sustainable construction and renovation of 187 units on four properties of Benny Farm, housing originally developed in 1947.

Designed to expand in phases, the project provides a protocol for construction that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, potable water use, waste water, and solid waste through retrofitting, reuse and waste diversion.

The Holcim jury said the project "showed an ambitious social vision aiming at integrating stakeholders and exceeding the scale of individual interventions." The project was also praised for its financial viability, aesthetically sensitive contribution to neighborhood planning, and ambitious social vision that offers potential reductions in health care and utility costs.

Energy systems at Benny Farm involve geothermal heat exchange, hybrid glycol/ electric solar power, radiant heating, and both air- and water-based heat recovery. Water systems include gray-water and storm-water reuse, wetland treatment and percolation, and water table recharge.

This project's core innovation is the integration of sustainable systems and community process in low-cost housing. The economic, social, and environmental dividends created by reduced energy and water use are shared by the various partners and applied to system maintenance and future reinvestment in new technologies and collective amenities.

Academy of Sciences

The Holcim Silver Award 2005/ North America went to the "New Sustainable California Academy of Sciences" (CAS) in San Francisco. The project is led by the renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano in collaboration with Chong Partners Architecture, natural scientist John Patrick Kociolek from CAS, and environmental engineer Jean Rogers of Arup. The project demonstrates the integration of function, form, technology, and nature from economic, environmental, and social points of view.

The 150-year-old California Academy of Sciences is one of the ten largest natural history museums in the world. Its new building is intended to serve as a model for rethinking this building type. Green building features are designed to reflect CAS's mission to protect the natural world.

The undulating "living" roof, covered with over two and a half acres (one hectare) of native plant species, will echo the contours of the landscape. Close collaboration between architects and engineers has yielded innovative strategies to help preserve the natural integrity of the park, conserve water and energy, reduce pollution, maximize natural ventilation and daylight, and use environmentally friendly building materials.

The jury commended the team's research using mock-ups to test the energy efficiency and visual effect of the proposed materials and methods of construction. "Of equal value," they wrote, "is the refined sensitivity to ecological issues, displayed, for example, by reclaiming the roof for a public green zone, using solar energy and natural ventilation, as well as deploying high-efficiency electric lighting throughout the building. The project contributes a poetically rich and rigorously considered addition to the existing environment."

New Ways to Form Concrete

The 2005 Holcim Bronze Award/ North America went to another Canadian project, "Material Reduction — Efficient Fabric-Formed Concrete," the applied research of professor and architect Mark West, of the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. West challenges the construction industry to achieve higher levels of efficiency through environmentally sensitive techniques for concrete construction.

By using flexible fabrics instead of conventional rigid molds, concrete elements can vary in volume according to structural requirements. These techniques require far less material — in both concrete and formwork — than is used in conventional practice and thus promise significant reductions in embodied energy, material costs, and transport weight.

A light, inexpensive, flexible fabric membrane — woven polyolefin geotextiles, the material used all over the world for common plastic tarps — is allowed to deflect under the weight and pressure of wet concrete, producing structural members that are more efficient and potentially more beautiful than those from conventional concrete casting. The necessary construction methods, tools, and equipment are extremely simple and available to both low- and high-technology building cultures.   >>>

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SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE Site plan for Benny Farm. Its renovation plan led to a gold award from the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. Image: L'OEUF Pearl Poddubiuk et Associés, Architectes SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE Energy and water use were two systems considered in the project, "Greening the Infrastructure at Benny Farm." Image: L'OEUF Pearl Poddubiuk et Associés, Architectes Building facilities systems at Benny Farm. Image: L'OEUF Pearl Poddubiuk et Associés, Architectes Energy services systems at Benny Farm. Image: L'OEUF Pearl Poddubiuk et Associés, Architectes Water services systems at Benny Farm. Image: L'OEUF Pearl Poddubiuk et Associés, Architectes Geothermal and solar energy systems at Benny Farm. Image: L'OEUF Pearl Poddubiuk et Associés, Architectes A green roof at the new building for the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco demonstrates the integration of function, form, technology, and nature. Image: Courtesy Chong Partners Architecture The undulating living roof of the California Academy of Sciences helps define interior spaces. Image: Courtesy Chong Partners Architecture   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.