NEB Prizes 2024: All Applications

We are in Val Neva, a valley halfway between the Alps and the sea, immersed in the wilderness of western Liguria’s rugged inland and the fairy-tale-like architecture of its medieval villages. FestivAlContrario is a multidisciplinary project at the intersection of music, theatre, art, and nature. Inspired by the cultural identity of these places, FestivAlContrario aims at fostering local development policies and actions through culture, with the objective of regenerating those territories.

With an emphasis on urban primary school students, CresceRio blends science and performing arts to: reestablish a connection between children and nature; foster their knowledge of freshwater ecosystems, and main stressors; and raise local community and policymakers' consciousness of the need to restore urban streams. Throughout 4 years of primary school, students conduct fieldwork and lab activities, and finally co-create a theater play about their experiences and perform it for the public.

Situated on a former East German agricultural co-op site on the Baltic island of Rügen, the Eco village forms an extension to the existing village of Streu. The modular design of the nine timber frame residential buildings is based on local vernacular climatic design principles enabling a high degree of prefabrication. The buildings are arranged around wind-protected courtyards for rural communal living. The Eco village also comprises a communal garden, e-car sharing and a co-working space.

Tempelhof Laboratory is an innovative, multi-disciplinary project addressing global challenges through sustainable urban development based on four open air concerts by two of the most famous german rock bands. Pioneering climate change mitigation, circular economy principles, biodiversity conservation, and cross-sector collaboration, the project serves as a scalable model for transforming urban spaces globally.

Our cemetery project is a public park project that dialogues with the surrounding living landscape. It creates a new landscape, a place that can be visited and which offers the possibility of installing new uses. The project addresses the highly symbolic theme of death and the signs with which our societies organize it and makes this cemetery a landscape of journeys by working on the voids, the notions of time, thresholds and sequences in the wandering.

Climate Change Summit: Where sustainability, inclusion, and beauty converge. This pioneering event showcases nature-based solutions, promotes biodiversity, and fosters community participation in eco-friendly transformation. Embracing diversity and accessibility, we connect people and nature in meaningful ways. Through innovative, replicable models, the Summit sets a new standard in environmental action, encouraging global change through local engagement.

The BASEhabitat project Hägi Wendls is a co-design and construction-site experiment of pioneers in the field of sustainable construction. University, craftsmen, architects, experts, clients cooperate, bridging the gap between different disciplines. It’s based on a shared vision of sustainability, that gives value to the existing building, to its structures and memories, but at the same time demands a high-quality design and a new mix of natural building materials, to create a liveable ambience.

Involving ideas and creative methods in the primary school curriculum to teach children about sustainable cities, architecture, and climate resilience is a fundamental investment for improving our present and future environment. The project applied research findings and a stakeholder survey, which led to the creation of a set of interactive workshops about healthy and resilient urban environments in eight primary schools around Lithuania, and a free pedagogical toolkit available nationwide.

Paideia Campus is a living laboratory located in the 13th century Princes Capano castle in the small town of Pollica, Italy. The campus is an experimental center working in three action areas (education, community and innovation) with the goal of understanding and replicating the concept of integral ecology- seeking comprehensive solutions which consider the interactions within natural systems themselves and with social systems.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9eOSb497-E&t=33s

Through this endeavor, our objective is to shed light on the authoritarian history of our nation using art as a tool. We aspire to instigate public discourse regarding the collective trauma that has permeated our society since that era. To realize this, we have gathered podcasts and immortalize the faces of 49 former political detainees from Spaç prison through sculptures. Furthermore, we have conducted research, exhibition, public dialogues, and produced a short film for this matter.