The European Commission and the Mies van der Rohe Foundation have announced the five finalists that will compete in the 2022 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award.

85 Social Housing Units in Cornellà de Llobregat by peris+toral.arquitectes - Frizz23 in Berlin by Deadline (Britta Jürgens + Matthew Griffin) - the Railway Farm in Paris by Grand Huit and Melanie Drevet Paysagiste - Town House at Kingston University in London by Grafton Architects - Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture in Hasselt by Francesca Torzo have been named as the 5 architectural finalist projects for the 2022 Mies van der Rohe Award.

Moreover, the 2 Emerging Architecture Finalists have been named as Enrico Fermi School in Turin by BDR bureau and La Borda - Cooperative Housing in Barcelona by Lacol.

The announcement has just been made by M. Witold Naturski, acting Head of the European Commission Representation in Poland, on the occasion of the EU Mies Award exhibition at the Zodiak Pavilion in Warsaw, and has been attended by M. Magda Maciąg, curator of the exhibition in Zodiak. 

M. Marlena Happach, architect of the City of Warsaw, Head of department of architecture and special planning, M. Marta Sękulska-Wrońska, President of the Warsaw Branch of the Association of Polish Architects and Ivan Blasi, coordinator of the EU Mies Award.

Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture in Hasselt by Francesca Torzo / Belgium. Image © Francesca Torzo architetto

"They are dignifying the space that we inhabit and use"

The 2022 Jury for the Award is comprised of Tatiana Bilbao, Francesca Ferguson, Mia Hägg, Triin Ojari, Georg Pendl, Spiros Pengas and Marcel Smets. 

The Jury considered that the 7 finalist projects "encourage and become models and references for local city policies". 

As the jury stated, the selected projects tackle with new management models based on the community and circular sustainability processes. Focusing on the productive and self sufficient city which is developed in a pedagogical way, they are dignifying the space that we inhabit and use. 

The selection of those projects is also based on a result of well-developed construction processes, and the jury paid attention to the care in the use of materials and details: a dignification of the day to day architecture, a dialogue between monumentality, education and heritage.

Initiated in 1987 after an agreement between the European Parliament and the Barcelona City Council, the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award has been organised by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation and the European Commission since 2001. 

Awarded biennially to works completed within the previous two years, the Prize exceptionally, this time, is awarded 2,5 years due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The five finalists were selected from the 40 shortlisted projects, which was announced in January 2022. In March, the Jury will visit the five works in order to select the Prize Winner. The Prize Winner and the Emerging Architect Winner will be announced at the end of April. 

The Awards Ceremony will take place on 12 May 2022 at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona. 

"The quality of the built environment and the need for care in developing this built environment needs to be communicated very broadly: to the public of course, but also to decision makers," said Francesca Ferguson, Jury member, journalist and curator Founder of the MakeCity Festival for Architecture and Urban Alternatives. 

"More than ever, we need to convey the way we want to live in our cities, and discuss it with decision makers in a transdisciplinary way that includes the civic engagement of society and those who will take part in the designing and thinking of communities."

"In recent years, the EU Mies Award takes much more care of what I call ‘everyday architecture’, the architecture where people live, work, spend their leisure time in public spaces," said Georg Pendl, architect, Jury member, CEO of pendlarchitects. President of the Architects Council of Europe (ACE-CAE) 2018-2021 Member of the expert group on cultural heritage of the European Commission. 

"We must also focus on what can be called ‘Sunday architecture’, that is, opera houses, theatres, museums and so on, but one could say that in Europe they are doing already quite well, so it's quite clear that if you build an opera house good quality will be taken for granted, but you also have to take care of the same level of quality for a housing project, for a social housing project, and all programmes," Pendl, added. 

Read on to know more about the 7 finalists:

5 Architecture Finalists

Image © José Hevia

85 Social Housing Units in Cornellà de Llobregat by peris+toral.arquitectes / Barcelona

"The bases of this new residential building are a matrix of communicating rooms that eliminates corridors to guarantee optimum use of the floor plan and the use of timber to enable the industrialisation of elements, improved quality of construction and a major reduction of deadlines and C02 emissions."

Image © Matthew Griffin

Frizz23 in Berlin by Deadline (Britta Jürgens + Matthew Griffin) / Germany 

"The architects adapted the Baugruppe model to create workspaces for arts, education and the creative industries and assumed the roles of developers to build the community of users for the project. 32 small companies and non profits threatened by Berlin’s rapid gentrification joined to secure their workspaces. The architects first assembled the group around their programatic goals, and then designed the building in continuous dialogue with the users, the neighborhood, and the city."

Image © Myr Muratet

The Railway Farm in Paris by Grand Huit and Melanie Drevet Paysagiste / France 

"Born from the desire of residents and local associations to see a place that combines urban agriculture and solidarity grow, the Ferme du Rail aims to integrate vulnerable people. The farm offers emergency social housing and social reintegration of 15 social reintegration housing units, 5 social student housing units, an unheated productive greenhouse, a restaurant open to the public, a mushroom-growing cave and a permaculture garden. Its objective is to minimize the need for energy, food and financial resources by implementing a circular economy."

Image © Dennis Gilbert

Town House - Kingston University in London by Grafton Architects / United Kingdom

"Inspired by the progressive educational vision presented in the brief, and the wish to connect with the community, we responded by arranging the programme in a three dimensional matrix, one singular complex space which links the various elements of the brief, giving at the same time to each part its identity, a place where spaces and uses interlock, and connect physically or visually, creating an environment that encourages overlap and exchange."

Image © Gion B. von Albertini

Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture in Hasselt by Francesca Torzo / Belgium

"Z33 settles in continuity with the existing buildings around the béguinage, echoing the dual character of their facades, enclosed towards the street and open with windows’ filigrees towards the garden. The exhibition rooms and the secret gardens compose a spatial labyrinth, amalgaming memories of local passages with ones of foreign villas or palaces."

2 Emerging Architecture Finalists

Image © Simon Bossi

Enrico Fermi School in Turin by BDR bureau / Italy 

"The project transforms a school of the 1960s in a semi-peripheral district of Turin, rethinking the architecture through the engagement of school communities in the definition of pedagogical guidelines, with the ambition to renovate both learning spaces and teaching methods. The existing building had a poor relation with outer spaces and a series of underused interior spaces. Part of the strategy to reverse this condition lies on the reorganization of accesses and external areas, opening the school to the city."

Image © Institut Municipal de l'Habitatge i Rehabilitació de Barcelona

La Borda - Cooperative Housing in Barcelona by Lacol / Spain 

"La Borda cooperative housing is a self-organized development to access decent, nonspeculative housing. The cooperative prioritised making a building with minimal environmental impact, both in its construction and its lifetime. Another basic objective is to eliminate the possibility of energy poverty among its users, which some of them suffered due to the high cost of energy. The initial strategy of the project to reduce energy demand has been the optimisation of the program renouncing the underground car parking, grouping services and reducing the surface of the houses."

> via Mies van der Rohe Foundation