In order to respond to the ecological and social challenges confronting today's societies, an architectural avant-garde is seeking to reestablish a sense of equilibrium between the Earth and its human inhabitants. The West is home to a number of centres of innovation. Questions of energy and materials are the focus of a new industrial revolution in which architects are the researchers. In the South, economic and climatic necessity is driving radical innovations which are leading, in turn, to an unprecedented level of South-North exchange. A global architecture scene is emerging whose participants no longer share their models but, rather, their ethics, methods and experiences.

It was to reward such innovations and innovators that the « Global Award for Sustainable Architecture » was created in 2007 by the architect and professor Jana Revedin, in partnership with the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris and an international network of centres of architecture and universities (CIVA, IUAV, IABL AND MFA). The prize, which received UNESCO patronage in 2011, annually rewards five architects who share the ethic of sustainable development and carry out new experiments in both urban and rural contexts. The work of the ten award-winners from 2009 and 2010 which is brought together here is confirmation of the globalisation and the density of the debate on the relationship between architecture, resources and development.