Hello and welcome to the Urbanist, Monocle's program all about the built environment.
I'm your host, Andrew Tuck.
Coming up, the environmental one is the must have.
But perhaps thinking about what does the local community need and desire and want got lost a little bit along the way.
And what we've seen with our award winners is that that's really to the forefront again.
This week we bring you a special episode in collaboration with the Wholesome Foundation Awards, the world's premier competition for sustainable design, highlighting projects that contribute to the transformation of the building sector.
We'll discover the ethos behind the foundation and its work and also head to the Natural History Museum for a special evening talking about incorporating nature into our cities as we meet the design talent behind the Urban Nature Project, a five acre, globally celebrated new green space in the heart of London.
The story we were telling the planners was, look at this wasted opportunity we have here.
We've got five acres of land.
We could be telling so many stories in this space.
And of course, they were massively behind the project.
All that and more coming up over the next 30 minutes here on the Urbanist with me, Andrew Tuck.
The Holcim foundation for Sustainable Construction is a non profit organization that promotes sustainable practices in the built environment.
Its goal is simple, to support architects, designers, engineers and urban planners who want to change how the world is built for the better.
Laura Vyskovich is the Foundation's executive director and I'm delighted to say that she joins me now.
Laura, welcome to the Urbanist.
Let's start with the obvious.
Tell us what is the foundation and what does it do?
The Wholesome foundation was created 20 years ago with a purpose to support people who are trying to accelerate change for sustainable construction.
So the way we go about doing that, we have two big programs.