Making sustainable building possible for all

Today is one of the most exciting days of the year so far at 拉法基 .?

We’re bringing together our commitment to improving living standards for all and our mission to decarbonize building, making it happen with a world-renowned architect, and all of this on a global platform: Venice, where the 2023 Biennale of Architecture has just begun.

On this occasion, in partnership with the Norman Foster Foundation , we’re launching the Essential Homes Research Project: a model for dignified and sustainable housing for displaced people.

There are 103 million people who are forcibly displaced in the world today. Conflict, violence, persecution and climate disasters have stripped them of the right to a place to call home.

With nowhere to turn, many displaced people seek shelter in settlements that are meant to be temporary, but become places where families can spend decades.

With this in mind, as Norman Foster put it, “a measure of long-term success would be the shift from refugee camps to communities, from shelters to homes.”

How can we turn shelters into homes? How can we turn camps into communities? And how can we build them sustainably, making sustainable building possible for even the most vulnerable populations in the world today?

Together with the Norman Foster Foundation, we at Holcim set out to answer these questions.?

The Norman Foster Foundation designed a model, the Essential Home, to meet essential human needs—durability, safety, dignity and wellbeing—and Holcim built it in a sustainable way. Using Holcim solutions, we were able to develop a structure that is low-carbon, energy-efficient and circular by design.

The Essential Home has a 70% lower CO? footprint compared to an equivalent traditional structure. We used ECOPact low-carbon concrete for pathways to connect the home units, and formed the home’s exterior shell with rollable concrete sheets, significantly reducing material use.

For insulation, the model uses Airium mineral foam in the roof and Elevate boards in the floor, ensuring energy efficiency as well as thermal and acoustic comfort.

For weather resistance, the Essential Home is built on a permeable platform made from recycled construction demolition materials, enabled by our ECOCycle circular technology platform. And in line with Holcim’s commitment to accelerate circular construction, the structure is fully recyclable: at the end of its lifecycle, the Essential Home can be dismantled and its various components reused in new buildings, or recycled for other purposes.

I’m thrilled to be presenting the Essential Homes Research Project at the European Cultural Center’s Time Space Existence exhibition during the 2023 Biennale, the theme of which is “laboratories of the future.” That’s exactly what we wanted to create with this project: a vision of a future where everyone has the dignified living conditions they need to thrive, and where sustainable building is possible for all.?

I hope the Essential Homes Research Project will open the conversation around making that future a reality.

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