Architecture is more than just a built object. It is a cultural memory, a social tool, a political statement. It can open up spaces for participation – or close them off. It can heal, irritate, provoke or simply function. The BDA Architecture Prize Nike 2025, awarded on September 11 in Erfurt, makes this visible with impressive clarity.
Every three years, the Association of German Architects honors projects that not only impress with their architectural quality, but above all with their social impact. This year, six current works and one classic building were honored. The spectrum ranges from a discarded garage building, which was given a new lease of life by a collective effort, to a university building from the 1970s, which still makes an urban planning statement today.
Nike is therefore not only a prize, but also a programmatic signal: building culture becomes visible as a social practice – beyond regional borders and into the public debate.
The jury, made up of female architects, architects, specialist journalists and members of the BDA executive committee, emphasized in its selection that architecture does not remain objective. The focus is not on formal excellence alone, but on the attitude with which it is built, transformed or activated.
Particularly in times of an intensified construction crisis, in which questions of material, energy and social responsibility characterize the discipline, the award-winning projects appear as exemplary answers: small-scale, participatory, ecological, social. And they remind us that architecture is always a sounding board for society.
Luise 19E – a garage building that was threatened with demolition – shows that architecture can also emerge from the off. The Berlin architects undjurekbrüggen decided, together with the client Uferwerk eG and future users, not to eradicate the existing building, but to transform it.
In a collective self-construction process, a community building was created that does not conceal its breaks, but rather stages them as a quality: irregular brickwork patterns, supplemented by reused materials, are held together by a new roof.
The jury praised the subtle reference to GDR garage courtyards as social spaces and saw the project as a “small, sparkling demonstration” of how building culture is created through commitment and participation.
Already analyzed in BAUMEISTER 1/2024
With the Spore Initiative & Publix ensemble, the AFF architects have achieved a double balancing act: architecturally precise, socially highly effective. Two buildings share a square that becomes an urban forum. Ornamental façades, precise proportions, the integration of historical spolia – all this gives the ensemble a special presence in the urban space.
But it was not the architecture alone that convinced the jury. The decisive factor is the way in which the site is used: as an open space for exchange, for critical discourse, for civil society initiatives. In this way, architecture becomes a catalyst for the urban public sphere.
You can read more about this in Baumeister 10/2024.
Educational architecture thrives on openness and flexibility. The student house at the TU Braunschweig, designed by the young Berlin architects Gustav Düsing & Max Hacke, is a manifesto of this attitude.
The modular steel-wood hybrid construction has created spaces that are hierarchy-free, sustainable and completely demountable. Despite its technical complexity, the house appears surprisingly light, almost natural.
The jury praised the reduction of resources, the high quality of stay and the contemporary logic of the energy concept. The fact that the building has long been used intensively by students is perhaps the most convincing confirmation of its architectural concept.
You can read about it in BAUMEISTER 1/2024.
Café Leo by sophie & hans Architekten shows just how much impact a small building can have. A filigree timber construction was created on a minimal footprint, which inscribes itself into a rough environment with its transparency and open gesture.
The café is both an invitation and a shelter – and was accepted by a wide variety of social groups right from the start. The jury emphasized the quality of detail, the elegant timber construction and the unbroken effect after years of use.
This shows that architecture does not have to be monumental to be socially relevant.
Already presented in BAUMEISTER 3/2025.
The conversion of a former telephone exchange into a kindergarten by Aline Hielscher Architektur is a lesson in precise intervention. Without any grand design gestures, a new use was inscribed into a building that had previously received little attention in its everyday GDR architecture.
The transformation impresses with its naturalness: a space for movement replaces the technical core, color accents mark the new use without denying the character of the existing building.
The jury praised this subtle, almost unspectacular reinterpretation as an example of responsible handling of the architectural heritage.
How can urban fractures be healed? The Johanniterzentrum Andreasgärten in Erfurt answers this question with a clever urban design. Three slender wooden buildings are grouped around a communal garden, filling an inner-city wasteland with life.
The project by Heine Mildner Architekten, Dorschner Kahl Architekten and Simonsen Freianlagen not only creates living space for several generations, but also new forms of social coexistence. The jury emphasized the wooden pergolas and the floor plan solutions that enable “living through”.
An ensemble that creates intimate spaces – in the middle of the city.
With the Klassik-Nike, the BDA honors a building that exemplifies an era in which architecture was naturally thought of as a contribution to society. The Cologne University of Music and Dance, designed by Werkgruppe 7 and Bauturm, is sculptural, monumental, open and inviting at the same time.
Red accents, generous circulation areas, spatial diversity – to this day, the building is used by students and the public alike. The jury emphasized that current architectural projects must not fall short of this standard. A wake-up call from the past to the present.
This year’s award ceremony was accompanied by a new visual media strategy. The aim is to anchor the award-winning projects more firmly in the public eye and to communicate the social relevance of architecture more clearly.
Because what distinguishes the Nike is not only the quality of individual works, but also the discourse that it initiates: How do we want to build? What responsibility does architecture bear? And how can it contribute to shaping a society worth living in?
The BDA Architecture Award Nike 2025 impressively demonstrates that building culture is not limited to aesthetic form. The award-winning projects are an expression of an attitude that sees architecture as a resonance space – between past and future, between individual and community, between built space and social life.
They remind us that architecture is always more than what you see: It is what it makes possible.
