The European Collective Housing Award has selected the winners for the 2024 cycle. Created by The Basque Architecture Institute and Arc en Rêve Centre d’Architecture, in collaboration with the Department of Territorial Planning, the award highlights innovation and excellence in collective housing design, emphasizing aesthetics, social responsibility, and environmental sustainability. Selected from a category of 171 entries from 19 European countries, the winners are La Borda Housing Collectie in Spain and Construction of a Wine Storage into Housing in Switzerland for the new construction and renovation category, respectively. The inaugural edition of the European Collective Housing Award recognizes the importance of collective housing in creating sustainable and inclusive communities while also emphasizing the need to promote architectural excellence in this domain.
Basque Country: The Latest Architecture and News
25 Years of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is celebrating its 25th anniversary this October 2022. Set on the edge of the Nervión River in the Basque Country, Spain, Frank Gehry's Guggenheim boosted the city's economy with its astounding success and changed the museum's role in city development. Twenty-five years on, the Bilbao Effect continues to challenge assumptions about urban transformations and inspires the construction of iconic pieces of architecture that uplift cities' status, calling investors and visitors.
Burgos & Garrido to Design the Nervión River Park in Barakaldo, Spain
The winners of the design contest for the Nervión Riverside Park in Galindo Este (Barakaldo, Spain) have been announced. Organized by BILBAO Ría 2000, the competition invited participants to submit proposals for a space along the banks of the Nervion River that Baracaldo residents could utilize. Currently, the majority of Galindo Este (Urban-Galindo) is developed, however, space along the riverbanks provided a number of opportunities for growth. The goal of the contest was to lay out an integral design that would blend with and build on the already-existing space around it.
Playfully Reimagining Madrid's Urban Realm
How often are spontaneous, primitive, radical actions implemented in large urban centres? Siempre Fiesta (or Always Party) by Andrés Carretero and Carolina Klocker was recently voted by the We-Traders community as their favourite in the recent Open Call Madrid competition. Viewing the city through children's eyes, where the order of the day is primarily playing or making, and using the concept of "free movement of our body in space" as a key driver, Carretero and Klocker developed a playful scheme that proposed filling a niche in Madrid's urban grid with sand as a way of managing the environment to create "comfortable space."
New Cultural Centre in Hernani Competition proposal / Laura Alvarez Architecture
Amsterdam-based Laura Alvarez Architecture has been awarded with the second prize in the International Competition for the realisation of the New Cultural Centre in Hernani, Basque Land. The competition was launched as an open european tender organized by the municipality of Hernani. More images and architect’s description after the break.