NEB Prizes 2021: All Applications

An educational refuge in central Vienna, has a potential of connecting the neighborhood and nature. The concept rethinks flexibility and its need of externally driven systems. Distancing itself from conventional planning, the building is conceptualized with no main organization. Achieving a unique interior by continuing the landscape within the building, the built and natural environments are seen as a harmonious whole, in which human movement and experience play a central role.

Using polypropylene (PP) fiber reinforcement instead of steel reinforcement in concrete structures, the CO₂-emission is reduced with more than 60% on the reinforcement, while providing easier quality control, a safer work environment, and reduced working hours and cost. PPCD has developed online programs for calculating the required dosage of PP fiber reinforcement in various concrete structures. The programs are available for everyone, so we can start saving the planet together!

Mountain on the Moon was a meeting point for design and citizens sponsored by Mini España, will concern itself with the use of renewable energies during Madrid Design festival. It will have USB charging points and reading points lit by solar energy, as well as the possibility to charge devices with the kinetic energy generated by movement. This new habitable and efficient equipment will try to work on the most pressing challenges of daily life with several workshops and activities.

The material isolation of the Balearic Islands made its inhabitants develop their own material culture out of the island’s limited resources. This enclosed landscape gave shape to sustainable techniques that deeply align with our current search for circularity and can thus be brought into the future. Together with the Balearic Institute of Housing, we are developing a 10 social housing units scheme that updates sandstone and timber construction while taking advantage of its sustainable nature.

The participatory design event faced the regeneration of the historic centre of Oliena, in inner Sardinia, with the aim of promoting local culture and production. The potentials of the place to undergo (as rootstocks) a possible modernisation (grafting), based on contemporary living patterns, were put at stake through co-design artistic installations engaging the inhabitants, able to trigger new models of space re-appropriation, aimed a

Mister Bin is an innovative waste management solution. We deploy an eco-designed and playful bin, based on artificial intelligence, which automatically recognises, compresses and sorts waste. We then collect the sorted materials and recover them with our partner recycling centres, enabling us to recycle 3 times more waste than our competitors, at a cost 6 times lower for municipalities.

CIRERERS is a new housing proposal. Focused on people, designed, managed and executed as a bottom-up cooperative model. This project wants to create a space of shared coexistence under the sustainability’s premises in construction and inclusion oriented to the accessibility and affordability of housing. Cirerers is the tallest wooden building in Spain, with the most demanding parameters in energy efficiency and providing the city with 32 affordable housing units from non-speculative model.

Lifery takes the form of a modern city salon, a hospitable, accessible space providing a moment of respite. The idea is rooted in the history of Lower Silesia health resorts, which were popular in the region before and after the war. In the case of Lifery, its patients are symbolic, not only people, but also their endangered environments. In Lifery we carry out a social and educational programme devoted to a relationship between design and ecology and people of all ages, needs and preferences.

Photodocumentation of the complete process of rescuing one of the proudest buildings in Terezín - a national cultural monument. The focus of the entire documentation is on the work of the restorers and craftsmen who, over the course of 2,5 years, with their skill and sensitivity, saved and made this architectural gem available and useful to future generations. The main aim of the documentation is to bring this meritorious achievement to the attention of the general public in an eye-catching form

NEXT STEPS is an initiative that stimulates designers, makers, and patients (as user innovators) to co-design and prototype a collection of open-source walking aids that can be distributed through digital platforms and materialized in Fab Labs. Next Steps is based on the principles of openness and customization of products, inclusiveness of citizens and implementation of local networks to create walking aids with real market potential, respecting regulations and certification.