NEB Prizes 2022: All Applications

The School of the Neighbourhoods (‘Scuola dei Quartieri -SdQ) is a free school of social innovation and entrepreneurship open to all citizens and spread throughout the city.

Conceived as a capability-building programme continuing the tradition of Milan's "civic schools", it contributes to the transformation of disadvantaged neighborhoods, spreading the ability and aptitudes of the inhabitants to design social impact solutions that respond to the needs of local communities.

It is all about disconnecting and reconnecting to Europe, whilst peeling a potato, a common vegetable to all Europeans.

Organised by 2 design schools, 5 different topics have been developed by students from 10 countries, that are meaningful for their generation:

food

identity

borders

solidarity

challenges for Europe

These questions have been sent to a huge and diverse community across Europe.

The answers were given by video whilst peeling a potato, a relaxing moment of truth.

PLAY, performance/video installation by the artist Alessandro Sciarroni, revisits in a contemporary way the Pallone al Bracciale, a game practiced during the Renaissance and still played in Italy in facilities called Sferisteri thanks to the passion of small but very active community working to keep it alive.
Starting from the sense of belonging to an ancient tradition, PLAY focuses on the concept of time and duration, bringing the performers to measure themselves with dedication and endurance.

The building joint venture’s aspiration for community-oriented living in generation-spanning co-housing led to a mix of cooperative and owner-occupied accommodation. The Spiegelfabrik development provides a communal residential scheme with a social and environmental focus. It consists of two end buildings and a connecting building that is accessed along alternating balconies. The site’s special characteristics are exploited to set the proposed uses in a spatial context with the open spaces.

Standing at the very entrance of the village, enchanting the visitors with its unpretentious beauty, the old Mill is not only an important landmark, but also a meeting point of cultures, nationalities, generations and ideas. In 2022, it was converted into a cultural center awakening the social and cultural life in the village and the region. With light interventions the Mill underwent dramatic transition from an abandoned ruin to a vibrant public space, regained back to the community it belongs.

In response to the aging that our municipality suffers and after the crisis caused by Covid-19, the Anel Women's Association launched the "Comprehensive care service for the elderly". The priority objective of this service is that older people who live alone have professional and specific care that promotes a support network that helps them face and overcome their problems, motivates them and stimulates them through carrying out different activities.

Gardens of the Future is a grassroots organisation transforming an abandoned area in Cyprus’ politically divided capital Nicosia, into a community garden. The aim is to revive people’s sense of belonging and connection, in the process of bringing a no man’s land back to life. Gardens of the future is the leader of a growing network to develop sustainable change elsewhere in Cyprus, while preserving its unique cultural, social and environmental identities and values.

The Valletta Design Cluster project is a regeneration project of a 17th Century building which had been abandoned for the last 30 years and rehabilitated into a  Valletta Design Cluster  which is a community space for cultural and creative practice. The project helped to rescue from obsolescence the building whilst regenerating a whole node within the city which had been abandoned, whilst also creating a roof garden to be enjoyed by the users of building and public in general. 

VORA is a prototype to consolidate the temporary public spaces that have occupied streets in response to the COVID-19 crisis. It forms a limit between cars and pedestrians that can be played on and appropriated, encouraging new uses for the public spaces that have been expanded in the areas near schools. VORA builds a safe boundary between cars and these new pedestrianized spaces, where users can engage in leisure, educational and cultural activities.

CAN GUINEU is an ephemeral architecture project to enable sustainable rural community building through arts and culture. Through this temporary intervention, a local heritage site is made accessible to citizens for the first time since its public acquisition. Supporting artistic events, cultural performances and social gatherings, CAN GUINEU becomes a local hub to bring communities together, fostering social cohesion and prompting a sense of belonging and of shared ownership of the place.