Holcim Foundation awards Stantec project with the world’s most significant recognition for sustainable design

The Swiss-based Holcim Foundation has recognized the Stantec-designed FortWhyte Alive Buffalo Crossing Paul Albrechtsen Visitor Centre with a Holcim Award for exceptional contributions to sustainable design. As the world’s leading competition for sustainable design, just four projects in five regions—Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, Middle East/Africa, and North America—were honored with a Holcim Award, placing the FortWhyte Alive Buffalo Crossing Paul Albrechtsen Visitor Centre among the world's most significant projects advancing sustainable design.

A legacy of sustainability, innovation, and distinction
Over the last two decades, the Holcim Foundation has allocated US$20 million to support projects led by distinguished architects, designers, and engineers who advance innovative methods in sustainable design and construction. The awards have also been a catalyst to increasing recognition for firms’ pioneering projects that advance sustainable design and construction practices.

Past winners include:

• City-preserving infrastructure, like New York’s BIG U Dryline by Bjarke Ingels Group and One Architecture.
• Community-driven buildings, including Pritzker Prize-winning Diébédo Francis Kéré’s Gando Secondary School in Burkina Faso.
• Building systems innovation, such as WOHA’s rain-harvesting BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
• Landscape architecture, like London’s Natural History Museum’s Urban Nature Project, which brought biodiversity back to the city.

The 2025 jury for North America was chaired by Jeanne Gang (US) and included Pamela Conrad (US), Craig Dykers (US), Hanif Kara (UK), Tina Larson (Canada), and Marianne McKenna (Canada).

The awards ceremony will take place at the Foundation’s Venice Forum event on November 20, 2025, where all winning projects will be showcased and the five regional grand prize winners will be announced.

Awarding excellence
The FortWhyte Alive Buffalo Crossing Paul Albrechtsen Visitor Centre serves as a new gateway to FortWhyte Alive’s 660-acre nature campus, offering environmental education and recreation programs. Buffalo Crossing is a living exhibit of climate resilience, reconciliation, and stewardship that facilitates expanded programming and revenue for this nonprofit organization. The 18,000-square-foot, two-story, all-mass timber visitor center demonstrates FortWhyte’s commitment to climate action through the built environment and inspires actions leading towards sustainable living.

The project opened in April 2025 and has already been recognized for several awards, including the 2023 WAN Award for Future Leisure Projects, 2023 Passive House Network Design Award for Best Unbuilt Project, and the 2023 Metropolis Planet Positive Award for Innovation for Best Unbuilt Project. It was also shortlisted for the 2023 World Architecture Festival Award for Leisure Led Development Future Projects.

An impressive example of environmental stewardship, the center achieved the CAGBC Zero Carbon Building Design Standard and is on target to be Manitoba’s first commercial building to achieve Passive House Certification.

About Stantec
Stantec empowers clients, people, and communities to rise to the world’s greatest challenges at a time when the world faces more unprecedented concerns than ever before.   

We are a global leader in sustainable engineering, architecture, and environmental consulting. ​Our professionals deliver the expertise, technology, and innovation communities need to manage aging infrastructure, demographic and population changes, the energy transition, and more. ​

Today’s communities transcend geographic borders. At Stantec, community means everyone with an interest in the work that we do—from our project teams and industry colleagues to our clients and the people our work impacts. The diverse perspectives of our partners and interested parties drive us to think beyond what’s previously been done on critical issues like climate change, digital transformation, and future-proofing our cities and infrastructure.  ​

We are designers, engineers, scientists, project managers, and strategic advisors. We innovate at the intersection of community, creativity, and client relationships to advance communities everywhere, so that together we can redefine what’s possible.​

Stantec trades on the TSX and the NYSE under the symbol STN.

Media Contact 
Susan Bender
Stantec Media Relations
Ph: (267) 773-9593
susan.bender@stantec.com