NEB Prizes 2022: All Applications

The Invisibility of the visible is an award-winning project at Europan16 for Pont-Aven, France. The theme is the urban regeneration of the former industrial site «la Belle Angèle» through the development of a sustainability path in support of the city and extending to the entire territory. The project combines a strategic and territorial approach to a more sensitive one that reveals the sensory characteristics of the site through the relationship between architecture and natural elements.

'ZUBI' is a multi-species nesting box for a large range of bird species, including the bird of the year 2021 the common swift, and a whole range of saproxylic invertebrate endangered species that are local to Navarra (Spain) and other parts of the EU. Designed to be manufactured and built by carpentry students with local wood manufactures, within environmental education programs, makes this nesting box an educationally purposed choice, that also promotes sustainability, conservation and nature.

Part of the World Heritage Sites of UNESCO, the city of Mantua has always been highly connected to its landscape. Surrounded on the three sides by lakes, its riverbanks are the most important green areas of the city, yet they are not well connected to the center. The project proposes to enhance the existing green system of Mantua and improve its relationship with the water elements, through public spaces and new urban installations that can generate a continuous green ring for the city.

You Tell Me Collective wants to propose a non-institutional urban planning approach, which tries to communicate, share knowledge and develop shared ecological and equality enhancing local visions. The aim is to create a method which would help to protect the biodiversity of nature in cities as well as protect the communities (human and non-human) living in there. 

A summer camp, designed in a participatory manner by the pupils from the management of the Giurgiu County Council of Pupils and students from the University of Architecture and Urbanism "Ion Mincu". A sustainable, green project that uses local materials and aims to promote accessibility, informal education and social inclusion. The summer camp is linked to a protected Natura 2000 site, which generates a pavillionar approach that has a direct relationship with the surrounding nature.

Piss soap is made entirely out of human activity waste materials, namely wood ashes, used cooking oil and urine. All these materials can be easily gathered locally from a urban environment. The gathering of material and production of the Piss Soap is locally implemented and redistributed to the public cleaning services as well as the inhabitants. Piss soap has a regenerative impact in our cities, allowing to transform in a creative and useful way, wastes that our cities congregate.

Agree is a project aiming at facing the agri-food waste problem through the circular economy, The objective of the project is to develop plant-based edible coatings that can be used to protect fruits and vegetables during their journey to our houses. Such protective coatings once are applied on fruits and vegetables making them last longer, i.e., extending their shelf-life. Our prototype maintains the freshness of fruits up to 3 times compared to fruits without our protective coating.

Duet focuses on the idea of strengthening the urban potential of the strategic site, empowering it with a new micro-infrastructure laid down in the neighborhood. A set of tools, provided to its citizens, allows them to spontaneously occupy the new infrastructured ‘platforms’ with ‘civic pavilions’. Carrying a clear social value, they also bear an ecological meaning by being integrated with solutions for energetic sustainability and green efficiency.

The „RISE“ design uses the urban development capabilities of Schwäbisch Gmünd‘s western entrance and develops it into an emergent quarter that meets the challenges of climate change and illustrates how people can live and work in the future. Four sub-districts with different focus areas are being created in phases: The entrance "unicorn square", the handcraft yard district, the innovation center district and the green court yard quarter.

Within this context of environmental emergency and global health crisis, aquí proposes to weave social fabric and cultivate co-responsibility through co-creation urban design methods that are scalable to other cities and communities. When citizens have the opportunity to participate in placemaking activities, they gain not only greater awareness of their environment, but also a sense of agency that fosters more ecological, just and inclusive communities.