The international Global Award for Sustainable Architecture is awarded on the basis of the following criteria: increased fairness, sustainability, innovation and participation in architecture and urban development as well as social responsibility. Bestowed by the Paris-based Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine, the award is under the patronage of UNESCO. 

Werner Sobek was one of 5 prize winners to receive a Global Award for Sustainable Architecture on 13thMay 2019 at an international conference in the Cité de l’Architecture in Paris. With this award, the jury honoured the “groundbreaking research”, which Sobek has initiated and supervised for 25 years as head of the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK). Besides Werner Sobek (Germany), award winners also included Ersen Gürsel (Turkey), Rozana Montiel (Mexico), Ammar Khammash (Jordania) and Jorge Lobos (Chile). 

In order to make the complex issue of sustainability more concrete, the jury presents their selection each year under a special theme. For the 2019 awards, the sustainability experts chose to refer to the 100-year anniversary of the Bauhaus movement, focusing on its multidisciplinary and social reform approach. 

The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture is supported by a growing community of prize winners from throughout the world, all of whom, like Werner Sobek, are committed to sustainable architectural ethics.