New European Bauhaus Commission announces its finalists

The EU’s New European Bauhaus has announced the finalists for its 2021 design competition to find designs that solve the world’s most pressing problems.

60 designs have been shortlisted by a jury – 3 for each of the 10 categories. The winners will be known after the summer, and an award ceremony will be in September. 

The application period closed in June, and the competition received more than 2,000 applications from people and businesses around the EU. Subscribers of the New European Bauhaus newsletter then voted on their favorite ideas and projects.

Among the projects are Xifré’s Rooftop by Barcelona’s Mata Alta Studio and works by Universidad de Navarra.

Discover the 3 finalists for the 10 categories:

1. Techniques, materials and processes for construction and design

   • ERDEN PURE, Austria

     • rammed earth walls

   • MESH, France

     • parametric design with an algorithm to assess energy consumption and human comfort

   • FAZ, Portugal

     • “easy to build” wood furniture making

2. Buildings renovated in a spirit of circularity

   • Xifré’s Rooftop, Spain

     • renovation of 19th-century buildings in Barcelona with roof gardens

   • Gardens in the Air, Spain

     • vertical urban garden

   • FABER, Romania

     • flexible workspaces

3. Solutions for the co-evolution of built environment and nature

   • The garden house in the city, Cyprus

     • house design

   • RoSana, Germany

     • guesthouses with ayurveda

   • Xifré’s Rooftop

4. Regenerated urban and rural spaces

   • Caño de Hierro, Spain

     • recovery project

   • Xifré’s Rooftop

   • LA FÁBRIKA DE TODA LA VIDA, Spain

     • old cement factory now a collaborative space

5. Products and life style

   • Ethical Deliveries Experimentation, Italy

     • cooperative governance structure

   • Dipdii, Germany

     • German designs and Bangladeshi craft

   • AYR sustainability platform, Portugal

     • tokens for green goods and services, or used to locally offset carbon emissions.

6. Preserved and transformed cultural heritage

   • Museo Universidad de Navarra (MUN), Spain

   • Open-air museum of the Resistance, Itlay

     • digital tools to access the history hidden of Milan

   • Xifré’s Rooftop

7. Reinvented places to meet and share

   • Campus design, Universidad de Navarra

   • Xifré’s Rooftop

   • ULIA, Spain

     • community garden

8. Mobilisation of culture, arts and communities

   • ESSERI URBANI, Italy

     • festival

   • IF: Social Design for Sustainable Cities, Poland

   • Tierras en danza, Spain

     • contemporary dance project

9. Modular, adaptable and mobile living solutions

   • LUOGHI COMUNI TORINO, Italy

     • two disused places in Turin revitalized through direct investment in a PPP

   • Home4Less, Belgium

     • modular temporary homes for the homeless

   • APROP Ciutat Vella, Spain

     • modular housing for evicted households with emergency accommodation in their own neighborhood

10. Interdisciplinary education models

    • Master Architecture, Universidad Navarra, Spain

      • environmental, social and economic sustainable design

    • Degree in Design, Universidad de Navarra

      • multidisciplinary, modelled on the Bauhaus school

    • ISS Summer School: Contemporary Identities, Italy

      • to explore the construction of housing that can be built and dismantled quickly, made as autonomous from energy supply point of view, flexible in its use