The Europan competition
The Europan Prize for Cities is a competition for young architects under the age of 40. Read more about the competition and the 2021 winners.
Europan is a European think tank and association of architects. Every two years, the organization holds the Europan competition for young architects under the age of 40 who design innovative housing projects across Europe. This thematic ideas competition is then followed by the implementation of the winning projects.
At the same time, Europan acts as a tool for European cities and urban stakeholders to “find and develop innovative strategies for their changing locations”, as the website states. The result is a large platform with many innovative ideas that can inspire architects everywhere. National teams organize the competition, which is then held at European level with a common theme and common goals.
The Europan competition is at the heart of Europan’s work. It is open to young professionals from the fields of architecture, urban design, engineering and landscape architecture who have a European degree or work in Europe. Each team must consist of at least one qualified architect.
Participants in the competition will receive a list of urban sites in European cities and a program brief. The locations have three scales, from micro to macro. Participants submit projects for one or more of these sites. If they choose more than two sites, they must be located in different countries.
The rules and assessment methods are identical in all participating countries. Each project must include a strategic consideration and an urban planning/architectural project for a specific area of the site. The submission comprises three panels, three images, a communication text and a project description of four pages.
The national juries in each country will pre-select the most innovative projects for each site and forward them to the Europan Scientific Council, which will analyze the projects at European level. A second meeting of the national juries will make the final decision on the winning teams. The winning teams and runners-up will receive a prize, and the winners will receive support in obtaining a contract for project implementation.
Europan 16 in the year 2021
The Europan 16 competition took place in 2021. It was held under the motto “Living Cities. Metabolic Vitalities – Inclusive Vitalities” and invited participants to submit designs that address climate change and inequality by proposing other ways of making planning habitable. The jury also looked for novel synergies between environmental, biological, social, economic, cultural and political aspects. The sites had the following themes:
Revitalization
recovery
Care
1,021 people registered to take part in the competition and 677 entries were submitted. A total of 127 prizes were awarded to 40 winners and 41 runners-up, as well as 46 special mentions. The projects covered 40 different locations across Europe. Of these, three were in Austria, three in Belgium, eleven in France, five in Germany, two in Italy, four in Norway, seven in Spain, three in Sweden and two in Switzerland.
The winning projects
The winning teams of the Europan 16 competition were announced on December 13, 2021. The full list of winning teams is available online here.
Among the winning teams, 17 different countries are represented, with most teams winning in their home country. Spanish, Italian and German teams won the most prizes for projects in foreign locations.
Both the winning team and the second-placed team receive prize money of €12,000 and €6,000 respectively. For Europan 16, € 726,000 was distributed. The winning teams showed an overwhelming interest in creating synergies between different dimensions of cities. They dealt with current topics and questions such as:
More information on the Europan 16 locations 2021 can be found here.