The 2009 Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC) Young Concrete Sculptor Awards, held in partnership with the Association of Arts in Pretoria, showcased a variety of high-quality submissions.

The three-story white concrete monolith of the Swiss National Park Visitor Center in Zernez, Switzerland, rests on a plinth. At each story, the façades are slightly offset to create wall projections. To help prevent crack formation, the building corners were erected first, followed by the middle pieces with the window cut-outs. The center was built exclusively with cast-in-place concrete. The composition of the lightweight concrete was initially refined in laboratory experiments and subsequently used for a series of mock-ups. An environmentally safe, anti-graffiti coating protects the building’s exterior surfaces.