Azernews.Az

Madrid/Spain - A group from Azerbaijan, including Mr. Horia Adrian, General Director of Garadagh Cement OJSC; Marketing, Sales and Logistic Director Mr. Balint Kato; Marketing Specialist Elshad Mirzayev; as well as architects Ragim Seyfullayev and Nailya Seyfullayeva, Nazim Veliyev, Emir Huseynov and journalist Ulviya Ahmadova took part in ceremonies at the second European Holcim Awards competition.
Winners of the Holcim Awards competition for projects and visions in sustainable construction were announced at the ceremony in Madrid. Total prize allocations of USD 270,000 were presented for ten projects that demonstrate the latest in eco-friendly and sustainable approaches from the building and construction industry.
The prizes for the region of Europe were conferred at the awards ceremony held in the CaixaForum in Madrid and attended by more than 300 representatives from government, business, architecture and related disciplines from more than 20 countries.
A project led by Hungarian architect Peter Janesch to house eleven ministries of the Hungarian government received the top prize of USD 100,000 and the Holcim Awards Gold 2008 trophy, for its comprehensive approach to urban renewal.
Second prize was awarded to an urban landscape extension project in Maribor, Slovenia designed by Spanish architectural firm ecosistema urbano and led by Belinda Tato.
The new Monte Rosa hut, a project of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) that independently supplies its own energy and water needs received the Bronze award.
Also, four projects from Belgium, Italy and Serbia received public acknowledgements.
For the first time, the Holcim Awards competition included a category for the visions of young architects and designers. Semini Samarasinghe, a Sri Lankan architecture student, was awarded the "Next Generation" first prize for her design of a production and ecological cluster in New Haven, UK.
The competition is run simultaneously in five regions of the world - North America, Latin America, Africa Middle East and Asia Pacific - by the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction (Switzerland) to promote sustainable responses to the technological, environmental, socioeconomic and cultural issues affecting building and construction.
The three best projects (gold, silver and bronze) from each region automatically qualify for the global Holcim Awards competition. The projects will be further evaluated by a global jury and the winners announced in Switzerland in May 2009.
The Holcim Awards is an international competition of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. The competition seeks innovative, future-oriented and tangible sustainable construction projects and provides prize money of USD 2 million per three-year competition cycle.