NEB Prizes 2021: All Applications

The Buzzbench is a monumental habitat for wild bees and at the same time a sculptural  parkbench that offers humans an educational opportunity or a quiet retreat to experience an increased sense of perception.

We tend to keep our distance from insects because we are afraid to get stung. But actually, the chances you get attacked by solitairy bees are nil. They are even better pollinators than honeybees and if we dare to take a closer look, they are amazingly beautiful!

In a scenario of unpredictable water provision, Fog harvesting represents an alternative solution to face the hydric crisis, in fact this system can collect water from air. A fog collector is a passive, low maintenance, and sustainable system; the aim of the research is to improve its efficiency. By addressing such challenge, there is an opportunity to optimize the technical aspects of the device and integrate many other functions and new fields of applications, like façades in building sector.

Mixing the concepts of fabric-formed concrete structures and the ancient Japanese plastering technique called Akarabe, this modular, adaptable and mobile tiny house looks to apply the best of both worlds: traditional knowledge and digital manufacturing, to create a new light-weight, mobile solution for living.

On one day we would act in a way that is coherent with the behaviour of a city committed to reducing food waste. We did this by organizing a large banquet for 900 diners in which all decisions addressed the challenge at hand. This rehearsal was a collaboration with neighbours, food markets, cooks, volunteers, or a scientific team that evaluated results based upon environmental, social, nutritional, economic and logistic indicators. Dress Rehearsal is a new tool of participatory urbanism.

Cosmopole is a mixed residence of 210 dwellings, composed of 102 social and 108 private housing. The rehabilitation of the former pharmacy faculty in the historic district of Lille city centre has enabled the conversion of this building into an upmarket property complex, which also includes a hotel, the British cultural centre and an art gallery. The street facades have been preserved and fully restored.

We are creating a co-laboratory space for experimental creation with mixed trash (plastic and organic). We will first collect and sort one-used packaging and food waste. Then, these upcycled resources will be transformed into second-life objects, products, and materials. To achieve all these we will empower the Dessau-Roßlau community and use open-sourced recycling technologies, such as Precious Plastic.

Fabra & Coats is a 19th century former industrial complex currently hosting more than 28,000m² of public facilities such as the Creative Factory, a nursery, a primary school, a high school, as well as spaces for community-led initiatives. Among these, the complex also includes Can Fabra, a 46-unit housing development built inside Hall G of the former industrial complex, which has preserved its exterior structure while using wood as the primary material for the new interior construction.

opÁ! created and dynamized an Orchestra of percussion instruments built from recycled or restored materials, reinforcing the ecological awareness of the community and the participants. It was a street performance project, adaptable to the stage, which included hundreds of children and young people, who were in a situation of social / economic vulnerability. The repertoire was based on the Cancioneiro Típico de Águeda, which identifies the local culture.

Can you imagine a house retrofitted in 3 weeks to reach the Net Zero Energy Level with a guarantee over 25 years? This is real since 2018 in France for 10 tenants of the Social housing Company Vilogia. In 2024, it will be real for more than 800 tenants of Vilogia and for thousands before 2030. The Energiesprong project creates affordable, attractive and net zero energy guaranteed for 25 years thanks to the new digital tools for building: BIM, of-site construction, digital 3D scan.

32 new houses on one day in a top of a 5 floors existing building: how to combine aesthetics, land conservation and construction of new houses! In 2017, Vilogia, social housing company, has launched a refurbishment program of 180 housing units in Poissy, near Paris. This project is combined with the off-site construction of 33 new wooden dwellings on the roofs! An atypical project, delivered at the end of 2017, which will enhance this emblematic heritage of the late 1950s