HouseEurope! Wins OBEL Award 2025

Since it launched in 2019, the OBEL jury has met twice a year, first to define a focus “that forms dialogue on emerging agendas that recognize the importance, fragility and challenges facing our societies and the built environment,” and then to review relevant submissions and determine the winner of the €100,000 OBEL Award. In early 2025, this year's jury* defined the focus of this year's OBEL Award as Ready Made, as a means of “rethinking modes of production, value and regeneration” and prioritizing what already exists. With adaptive reuse and the circular economy at the forefront of many architectural practices, especially those in Europe, it seemed that many contenders were in the running for this year's award. But instead of an individual adaptive reuse or similar project, the jury selected a policy lab: HouseEurope!, the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) initiated by the architecture practice bplus.xyz and the research platform station.plus at the Institute for Design, Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich.

World-Architects learned about HouseEurope! last year, when the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) made it the subject of the second of three documentary films in its Groundwork series. To Build Law followed bplus partners Arno Brandlhuber and Olaf Grawert, and activist and splus member Alina Kolar as they developed the HouseEurope! initiative. Simply put, their ECI that launched earlier this year is looking to gain one million signatures from EU citizens by the end of January 2026, after which the European Commission would need to establish a working group to consider the HouseEurope! proposal: “make renovation the new norm.” In the words of the OBEL Award jury: “The goal is to pass new legislation that makes renovation and transformation more accessible, affordable, and socially equitable—prioritizing reuse over demolition, and preserving homes and communities while saving energy and resources.”

HouseEurope! is bold for acknowledging the role buildings play in climate change and making architecture a key element of public policy, but also because it sees Brandlhuber and other architects venturing directly into politics, a realm populated predominantly by lawyers. But architects are uniquely positioned in understanding the environmental impacts of the built environment, recognizing the impediments to responsible development, and knowing the the value in prioritizing renovation over demolition. Even if the petition is not successful, or if it is but then stalls at the EC, HouseEurope! may still inspire similar legal proposals in other jurisdictions, and it also signals to other architects that frustration with political inaction over climate change can be addressed through bottom-up initiatives.

This year’s winner is not just a source of inspiration, but a call to action. With OBEL’s support and endorsement, HouseEurope! is building broad momentum to change the very fundamentals of what gets built—and how. Through a pan-European campaign, the HouseEurope! team is pushing for citizen-driven legal proposals that bring the key issues at the heart of this year’s OBEL Award to the courts of the European Parliament.

The OBEL Jury believes that recognising and awarding HouseEurope! sends a strong message to the profession and the next generation of architects: you have a voice, and the power to reshape the structures limiting our field. HouseEurope! mobilizes architecture’s collective scale—not just as a service profession, but as an active political and social force for the common good.

• Nathalie de Vries (Chair), Founding partner of MVRDV, Rotterdam
• Tiantian Xu, Founding Principal of DnA, Beijing
• Sumayya Vally, Founder and principal of Counterspace, Johannesburg and London
• Aric Chen, General and artistic director of the Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam
• Anne Marie Galmstrup, Founder of Galmstrup Architects, London

• 2024 (Architectures with): 36x36 by Colectivo C733
• 2023 (Adaptation): Living Breakwaters by SCAPE Studio
• 2022 (Emissions): Seratech’s solution for zero-emissions concrete
• 2021 (Cities): The 15-minute city as defined by Professor Carlos Moreno
• 2020 (Mending): Anandaloy by Anna Heringer
• 2019 (Well-being): Art Biotop Water Garden by Junya Ishigami & Associates