European Collective Housing Award 2024 , San Sebastián / Spanien

 

The award is founded jointly by the Basque Country Architecture Institute / Instituto de Arquitectura de Euskadi and arc en rêve centre d’architecture, with the sponsorship and collaboration of the Department of Territorial Planning, Housing and Transport of the Basque Government.

 

Collective housing is one of the key hallmarks of Europe. The development of its cities over the centuries has left plentiful, dazzling examples which have shaped the particular specificity of the European way of life and values.

 

This history is a phenomenon firmly rooted in Europe. And post-industrial history – when the models and types that were to characterise modernity in the first half of the 20th century and the global post-war era took shape –, also offers a wealth of examples illustrating the development of collective housing, its impact on European cities and on the history of architecture in general: from the Phalanstère utopias of Fourier, the Hofs of Vienna and the Weissenhof Siedlung in Stuttgart, to the Le Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation and examples by Aalto, Eiermann, Jacobsen and Niemeyer – among many others – in Berlin’s Interbau.

 

Subsequently, in the last third of the 20th century, the urban excesses of the modern movement and “developmentalism”, along with successive economic and social crises, helped to create a considerable stigma regarding social housing, which the post-modern era proved unable to re-signify.

 

Nonetheless, since the end of the 20th century, the new millennium has brought with it the emergence of new forms of collective housing, that have successfully reconnected with a certain idea of the European welfare state. The rapid development of the post-modern city, globalisation, property market tensions, phenomena of ecological awareness and the defence of the most fundamental social rights have made architecture and housing one of the most significant strands in the development of contemporary Europe.

 

At a time when access to housing has definitely become an intersection of different economic, social and environmental issues, and a barometer of precarious social conditions, as well as an indicator of the varying efficiency of states and public authorities, it is time to proclaim collective housing, and in particular public sector housing, as a European hallmark combining social awareness with urban socio-economic and environmental balance.

 

Europe is heir to a long tradition of collective housing which deserves to be showcased, as the formula guaranteeing social mixture and cohesion, as well as contained urban development which avoids the rampant consumption of land and “étalement urbain” resulting from the untrammelled building of individual houses. Likewise, the emergence of the different variants of social housing has, in combination with the tradition of collective housing, proved one of the main tools in building the welfare state in Europe.

 

Meanwhile, the growing environmental awareness spurred on by climate change means that European urban development models are turning back to collective housing with new eyes, once again seeing this as the best tool to guarantee sustainable urban development.

 

Lastly, the social and health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic placed a definitive emphasis on the importance of housing not only as a raw material of the city, but as an existential amenity for people and their plans for life, placing the habitability of homes themselves, and also their capacity to link people together, at the heart of the concerns of all agents involved in the process of creating collective housing.

 

Europe presents a great diversity of situations, with countries where public housing is on the wane, while others have chosen to increase such public sector initiatives, countries where individual homes continue to swallow up great swathes of land, diluting the city, while others argue for balanced urban models that prompt us to rethink and rebuild the city on top of itself.

 

In their conviction that these are values we should preserve and foster, the Basque Country Architecture Institute together with arc en rêve centre d’architecture, with the support of the Department Of Territorial Planning, Housing And Transport of The Basque Government, have founded the European Collective Housing Award, intended to showcase the architecture of collective housing constructions, and their impact on society, while also raising awareness as to the importance of housing policies, and their constant renewal. The European Collective Housing Award thus aims to generate a critical debate about housing, the right to quality domestic, everyday architecture, while also proclaiming the value of European-style collective housing, with a richness, diversity and multiplicity of options once more serving as the best possible tool to revitalise cities, policies and generational aspirations.

 

Eligible candidates for the 1st European Collective Housing Award are collective housing developments located in one of the 46 countries making up the Council of Europe: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Republic of Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Ukraine.

 

Opening of the submissions’ form: February 15th 2024

Announcement of the jury members: February 29th 2024

Deadline to submit documentation: May 7th 2024

Reflection and analysis of the proposals: from the close of the call during May 2024

Jury meeting: May 2024

Jury decision: June 2024

European Collective Housing Award exhibition: October 2024