NEB Prizes 2021: All Applications

Dendro-Habitat is a project that encompasses several scales. The creation of a sustainable forest that also serves as a park for the neighbors. The use of the wood obtained from that forest as a construction material. The creation of a wood factory that treats the material obtained for the construction of ecological homes and furniture and furthermore it becomes an icon and a meeting point for the residents of the area and the workers, with an essential didactic part.

Sound kinetic objects respond to soil moisture conditions in their current location. The acquired data generate sound and create an audio acoustic environment. The installation takes into account the issue of environmental sustainability and at the same time combines it with media art and data sonification.

CitySkin is an experimental mobile application. The application uses mobile phones for data retrieval and mapping, to design an invisible skin of a city (an output map). It follows an user journey at a given moment in time and place. The project explores relations between subjectivity and raw data by combining hard data with visual mapping. Cities and their intrinsic diversity can be compared. Slightly different input variables can present greater changes in a recurrent path. 

The object of my proposal is the design of an origami pavilion with rigid panels obtained from the repetition of a triangular module. Thanks to parametric modelling and digital fabrication, it was possible to set up a process consisting of five steps:(1) Physical computer simulation of the origami fold;(2) Choice of the fold angle to obtain a set of coherent connections;(3) Generation of the cutting files of each element with relative labeling;(4) Production via laser cutting; and (5) Assembly.

The CA in Heidelberg (Germany) is a self-governed housing project for over 240 students and apprentices initiated in 2013 by a group of young volunteers. After a long period of self-organized planning and construction, the new building will be inaugurated by the end of 2021. Besides the innovative four-level timber construction, two old buildings will be restored in the next two years that round off the concept of an affordable, ecological and self-administrated place for living and learning.

The idea aims to recover all the lithium from exhausted batteries and let the European market be independent from other markets, by the continuous growth of this precious metal for the increase in the electricity world.

The whole process would be carried out in a completely green way, without worsen the environmental conditions, by converting a process that is currently very polluting indeed into a completely natural process, pursuing goal 12 of the 2030 agenda.

Today’s biggest challenges such as the climate crisis, Covid-19, and political disorder all challenging the ideals of globalism requires a fundamental shift, in understanding the meaning and form of healthy urban environments. We need to refashion cities as places that foster social interaction and participation, offer relief from stress, the ability to reach all daily facilities in a short distance, and opportunities to be physically active with an environment that is clean and safe to live in.

My Master Diploma Project focuses on the regeneration of an important though neglected area located at the crossing plot of four districts in Vienna. The main goal was to design a building based on pro-ecological systems, providing private housing space and multi-functional public services while ensuring the sustainable revival of the area by calming the traffic, designing green and resilient space. Proposed variety of functions and nature-based solutions may improve the quality of life around.

The concept of “Active Landscape” focuses on starting from the existing resources and activating them in order to generate new methods of living within the landscape. In a time where our ecosystems are in crisis, we tried to apply this concept in the territory of Marine di Lecce, Italy. Having a long history of illegal constructions and abandonments, we have tried to reassign a lost value for the land, safeguard threatened public and turn poorly infrastructured settlements into more safe ones.

¿If we could start from zero - but taking into account the current technology and knowledge - how would we affect nature?

Distancing itself from the primitive, Paradise Now is a look towards our origins from a technological perspective. The purpose is to create an alternative way of living based on a symbiosis with the environment. In order to provide hope, it is a seed for change, fighting the misconception that things are the way they are and that they cannot be changed.