The EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award presents the first list of 449 works competing in the #EUMiesAward2022 | Greek nominees

Housing beats culture

For the first time since 2003, single houses (18,10%) has become the largest group of works, followed by collective housing (14,87%) and education facilities (14,01%), surpassing buildings with specific cultural programs. Cultural facilities such as museums, theatres, galleries and congress centres represent an 11,64% of all works. This could be the result of the latest winners and finalists – Kleiburg in Amsterdam, Bordeaux Grand Parc, Navez 5 in Brussels, Ely Court in London and the Lobe Block in Berlin – which have highlighted the importance of good living conditions connected to the quality of design; but also of the current pandemic situation which has raised awareness on the quality of where we live and how people actually live, after staying at home for long periods of time; and the public debate, including with EU policy-makers, on the housing crisis, in which the EU Mies Award participated through talks, exhibitions and projects with UN-HABITAT such as Urban Maestro.

Collective housing buildings are particularly outstanding in cities such as Barcelona (6), Paris (4) and Riga (3). For a very long time, the most prominent examples of collective housing quality came from public-funded constructions, so it is significant that on this occasion, 75% of the collective housing projects have been privately funded.

This important change in trend is mirrored by the fact that buildings for cultural facilities have decreased 6% (single houses have increased the same percentage). This could be the result of understanding cultural facilities in other ways such as being connected to other programs and finding ways to ensure maintenance costs with different strategies. The figure is substantial and will need to be analysed.

Regeneration keeps advancing

A quarter of the total number of nominees have to do with regeneration, understood in its broadest sense and including transformations, restorations, rehabilitations, extensions and adaptive reuse.
In Ireland, the percentage rises to 62% and in places such as Belgium, half the works tackle with the transformation of what already exists, creating mostly cultural and educational buildings but also changing office buildings into housing. The same situation can be found in the Czech Republic and Denmark where 5 of the 7 works from Copenhagen are the result of transformations while in Brussels, 3 of the 5 works are regenerations.

The highest number of transformed existing constructions have become cultural buildings (31), followed by Education (18) and Urban Regeneration (13). It is worth highlighting that

Single Houses are also the result of transforming existing buildings and 11 of them can be found in the list of nominees while 11 Collective Housing buildings have also been the result of transformations.

Export and Import

There has been an increase of transnational works (10%), in which architects from one country have built in another one or the works have been collaborations between architecture offices, teaming up with local partners. This represents a similar percentage than in 2017, a percentage that has been pretty constant since 2009, with 35-45 cross-border works.

The Netherlands is the country that exports most architecture with 8 works in which architects have built in other territories (Casanova+Hernandez Architecten in Albania; Neutelings & Riedijk Architects, Atelier Kempe Thill architects and planners and Korteknie Stuhlmacher Architecten in Belgium; KAAN Architecten in France; MVRDV and O.M.A. in Germany; O.M.A. in Sweden).

France comes in second with 5 works (Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes in Austria; LIST and NP2F in Belgium; Thomas Raynaud Architectes + Paul Devarrieux architecte in Spain; and InSitu in Ukraine) together withDenmark also with 5 works (BIG in France, Norway and Sweden; Andersen & Sigurdsson Arkitekter in Iceland; C.F. Møller Architects in The Netherlands).

The countries in which most foreign offices have built have been Belgium with 7, France with 6, Germany with 6, and Austria with 4. All these works in France and Belgium have been the result of different types of competitions (international, European, public, private, restricted and open), while 4 of the 6 German ones and 3 of the 4 Austrian ones have also been the result of competitions, two of them from private promoters.

BIG Bjarke Ingels Group (Copenhagen) is the studio with the highest number of nominated works (4), with one of them in Copenhagen (DK) and the other three in Bordeaux (FR), Jevnaker (NO) and Stockholm (SW). It is followed by COBE (Copenhagen) which has works in Copenhagen, Køge and Fredericia, all in Denmark; DO Architects (Vilnius) has works in Vilnius and Klaipėda, all in Lithuania; Grafton Architects (Dublin) have built in Toulouse, Paris and London; and Helen & Hard (Oslo and Stavanger) have two works in Stavanger and one in Oslo, all in Norway.

Metropolis versus Rural

These 449 works are distributed in 279 locations with a total population that corresponds to 30% of the total population of the participating countries in the EU Mies Award 2022.

12% of the works have been built in large metropolitan areas with more than 3 million inhabitants. 46% of the works are in cities with a population between 100.000 and 3 million inhabitants and 37% of them are in cities and towns with 1.000 to 100.000 inhabitants. 4% of the works are in villages with less than 1.000 inhabitants, and 1% of the works are isolated.

The most populated location is London (UK), where there are 3 works. The smallest village is Hribljane (SI) which has 8 inhabitants living next to the springs that splatter the hill.

It is also worth mentioning that 15% of the works are in the densest cities with over 5.000 2 inhabitants/km .

From North to South and East to West

The northernmost work is the Visitor Center in Bakkagerði, Iceland, by Andersen & Sigurdsson Arkitekter from Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, Denmark.

The southernmost work is the Pal-maison in Tozeur (TN) by ï+ï. The 40.000-city is a large oasis well known for its architecture of brownish brickwork and geometric patterns and also because it was a filming location for the Star Wars saga. Tunisia joined the Creative Europe programme of the European Union in 2017 and it is the first time that it participates in the EU Mies Award.

The eastern-most works are the Hover Hotel by pnstudio. and the Central School by Storaket Architectural Studio in Dilijan (AM). Armenia joined the Creative Europe programme in 2018 and it is also the first time that it participates in the Prize. The 17.000-inhabitant-town is well known for its spas and is currently the fastest-growing urban settlement in the country.

The western-most work is in Horta (PT), on the island of Faial of the Azores Islands. The City Seafront Requalification by Extrastudio, Oficina dos jardins and SPI has changed the life of the 15.000-inhabitant-town and its connection to the ocean where whales and dolphins can be observed.