Last year, the Basque Culinary Center announced the creation of the GOe: Gastronomy Open Ecosystem. A project that seeks to generate a gastronomic ecosystem focused on research, innovation and entrepreneurship. It will have its own building in San Sebastian, Spain, becoming the new headquarters complementary to the previous BCC building designed by VAUMM in 2011.
With the aim of selecting the best proposals for the construction of the GOe building, an international architectural competition was launched in December 2021. After receiving and analysing different proposals, five finalists were selected to move on to the next phase of the award process: 3xn (Denmark), BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group (Denmark), OMA - Office of Metropolitan Architecture (Netherlands), Snøhetta (Norway) and Toyo Ito & Associates (Japan).
The winning architectural project will be a building that will need to integrate into the urban landscape in an organic and, above all, participatory way with the direct surroundings. In this sense, the aim is to generate an urban innovation district, becoming a point of reference and attraction. At the same time, it will be one of the levers for activating the public-private strategy 'The Food Global Ecosystem' promoted by the Basque Government.
The winner will be announced in May 2022.
