Best Project, Renovation/Restoration: Lycee Nationale de Cite Soleil
In most countries, a project to rebuild and seismically strengthen an earthquake-damaged school would not likely earn its team an international award. But with one such project in Cite Soleil, an isolated neighborhood on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, the accomplishment earns extraordinary praise for its social benefits and for the work done in a difficult environment.
Four years after a magnitude-7.0 earthquake killed more than 200,000 people and devastated Port-au-Prince, the high school in Cite Soleil was still too dangerous for its 1,500 students to use. Studying in makeshift shelters in the school's courtyard, the students were exposed to such heat, sun and rain that they could barely think, much less learn, they said.