2025 OBEL Award winner Teaching Fellowship program, HouseEurope!, Germany design show news

2025 OBEL Award winner News

18 June 2025

We are delighted to share that HouseEurope! has been awarded the 2025 OBEL Award.

Still from the documentary To Build Law, 2024:

photo © CCA

HOUSEEUROPE! WINS THIS YEAR’S OBEL AWARD

NOT A BUILDING — A MOVEMENT AND A CALL TO COLLECTIVE ACTION

Copenhagen, 17.06.2025 — HouseEurope!, the registered non-profit organisation, conceived as a pioneering policy lab and citizen-led initiative advocating for the social and ecological transformation of Europe’s built environment, has been awarded this year’s prestigious OBEL Award. Presented annually by OBEL, a foundation recognising and rewarding architecture’s potential to act as tangible agents of change, the OBEL Jury, reflecting on this year’s “Ready Made” focus, honours HouseEurope! for its spearheading role in raising awareness and mobilising public support for a paradigm shift in European construction and housing culture.

“HouseEurope! demonstrates the scale, agency, and responsibility inherent in architecture. As architects, we are not merely practitioners who receive and execute instructions—we can and should act as civic agents within the political and social frameworks to work towards the common good.” – Nathalie de Vries, MVRDV, Chair of the OBEL Jury

In an industry driven by polluting practices of demolition and for-profit development, HouseEurope! forefronts architecture as a tool for the political and public good. The goal is to pass new EU laws to make renovation and transformation of buildings easier, affordable and socially just. In doing so, HouseEurope! needs one million signatures across all EU member states until January 31, 2026, to bring the topic to the forefront of political discourse and promote a shift in values. Sign the petition here: eci.ec.europa.eu.

“Every minute, a building in Europe is destroyed—not by natural disasters, but by financial speculation. And while a few profit, we all pay the price: with rising rents and rising temperatures. We’re running out of time! HouseEurope! is a call to action: sign and support now to stop the demolition drama and renovate, don’t speculate!” – Olaf Grawert and Alina Kolar, HouseEurope!, Co-Initiators and Campaign Managers

By awarding HouseEurope!, the OBEL Jury sends a clear message to the architectural profession, as well as to future generations of architects: the profession has the collective power to challenge and transform the systems that shape how we live together. The OBEL Award 2025 will be officially presented on 21 October in Brussels, home of the European Union, where the ECI will advocate for change, with events and public actions planned across Europe.

“We are proud to present this year’s OBEL Award to HouseEurope!—a choice that not only reflects architecture’s inherent potential but also demonstrates the spirit of OBEL. In a field as complex and restricted as the building industry, no one project can fully represent the systemic change we urgently need. This year’s winner is both a source of inspiration and a call to action, and we will support HouseEurope! in bringing their work to a broader global context.” — Jesper Eis Eriksen, Executive Director, OBEL

About OBEL

A foundation recognising and rewarding architecture’s potential to act as tangible agents of change that contribute positively to social and ecological development globally. Founded in 2019, OBEL values the plurality of architecture as a practice through expanding who and what defines our built environment. Through various activities, OBEL supports influential ideas and approaches that can spearhead and seed future developments, while driving architectural discourse and education. Learn more at www.obelaward.org.
Instagram: @obelfoundation

OBEL Jury 2025

Nathalie de Vries, Chair of Jury (Founding Partner of MVRDV Architects, Rotterdam (NL))

Tiantian Xu (Founding Principal of DnA, Beijing (CHN))

Sumayya Vally (Founder and Principal of Counterspace in Johannesburg (SA + London (UK))

Aric Chen (General and Artistic Director of the Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam (NL))

Anne Marie Galmstrup (Founder of Galmstrup Architects, London, (UK))

Still from the documentary ‘To Build Law’, 2024:

photo © CCA

Previous Awardees

2024	Architectures With 36 x 36 by Colectivo C733	36 x 36 by Colectivo C733
2023	Adaptation Living Breakwaters by Kate Orff/Scape Studio	Living Breakwaters by Kate Orff/Scape Studio
2022	Emissions Seratech by Sam Draper & Barney Shanks	Seratech by Sam Draper & Barney Shanks
2021	Cities 15-Minute City by Carlos Moreno	15-Minute City by Carlos Moreno
2020	Mending Anandaloy by Studio Anna Heringer	Anandaloy by Studio Anna Heringer
2019	Well-being Water Garden by Junya Ishigami + Associates	Water Garden by Junya Ishigami + Associates

About HouseEurope!

HouseEurope! is a nonprofit initiative and policy lab advocating for the social and ecological transformation of the construction industry. Through legal instruments, cultural campaigns, and a European Citizens’ Initiative, it calls for a shift in EU policy toward a sustainable and socially responsible construction industry. Learn more at www.houseeurope.eu.

HouseEurope! demands a right to reuse for existing buildings based on three key pillars:

(I) tax reductions for renovation works and reused materials, (II) fair rules to assess both potentials and risks of existing buildings, and (III) new values for the embedded CO2 in existing structures.

HouseEurope! is driven by a network of local partners and supporters active in most EU member states. Co-initiated by b+ and s+ (D-ARCH, ETH Zurich), they are coordinating efforts on the ground to mobilize and campaign. Their work is amplified by a growing group of public ambassadors, including cultural figures and supporting institutions lending visibility to the cause.

Instagram: @houseeurope.eu

HouseEurope! National Organising Members (key representatives per country)

Austria – Verena Konrad
Belgium – Vlaams Architectuur Instituut
Bulgaria – Eliza Yokina

Croatia – Ida Krizaj Leko
Cyprus – Raquel Guerra Aragonés
Czechia – VI PER Architecture Gallery
Denmark – Tamara Kalantajevska, Enlai Hooi
Estonia – Association of Estonian Architects
Finland – Markus Lähteenmäki
France – Marion Waller, Estelle Sabatier
Germany – Architects for Future

Greece – Communitism
Hungary – KÉK. Contemporary Architecture Centre
Ireland – Demolition Take Down
Italy – Fosbury Architecture
Latvia – Olga Trebuhina
Lithuania – Fondas
Luxembourg – Florian Hertweck, LUCA
Malta – Alexine Sammut
Netherlands – Architects Climate Action Network NL (ACAN! NL), Saskia van Stein, Studio for Immediate Spaces
Norway – InnoArch
Poland – Aleksander Nowak
Portugal – Architecture Matters

Romania – Oana Iacob

Slovakia – Igor Machata

Slovenia – Maja Vardjan

Spain – Ivan Blasi, ACAN Architects Climate Action Network
Sweden – ACAN! Architects Climate Action Network

HouseEurope! Ambassadors

Oana Bogdan (Architect)
Leilani Farha (housing rights advocate)
FormaFantasma (design studio)
Reinier De Graaf (partner OMA, co‑founder AMO)
Jacques Herzog (H&dM, Pritzker Prize)
Joanna Kusiak (sociologist, University of Cambridge)
Anne Lacaton (Lacaton & Vassal, Pritzker Prize)
Charlotte M.‑Barthes (architect & educator)
Barbara Metz (Director, Environment Action Germany)
Pierre de Meuron (H&dM, Pritzker Prize)
Ann Pettifor (political economist)
Ruth Schagemann (President, Architects’ Council of Europe)
Jean‑Philippe Vassal (Lacaton & Vassal, Pritzker Prize)

Supporters (selection)

ACE – Architects’ Council of Europe
CCA – Canadian Centre for Architecture
Deutsche Umwelthilfe
Bauhaus Earth

Initiative Umbau (initiative)

OBEL AWARD program images / information received 180625

Previously on e-architect:

OBEL Award

2024 OBEL Award Teaching Fellowship program

OBEL AWARD

The 15-minute City Is Winner Of €100,000 Obel Award For Architecture

photo : Søren Bang Clemmesen

OBEL AWARD 2021: 15-minute city

Water Garden at Aedes Architecture Forum
Curated by Junya Ishigami & Associates

photo © Courtesy of nikissimo Inc.
OBEL AWARD 2019: Water Garden at Aedes