5 Finalists for the 2026 European Prize for Urban Public Space

The international jury for the 2026 European Prize for Urban Public Space, organized by the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) and chaired by architect Eva Prats and comprising Angelika Fitz, Monika Konrad, Inês Lobo, Bas Smets, Philip Ursprung, and Lluís Ortega (serving as secretary)— selected the five finalists from the 25 previously announced shortlisted projects. These interventions, spanning various territorial scales, offer concrete responses to current challenges: the climate crisis, ecological restoration, and social cohesion.

The prize has solidified the CCCB standing by achieving record participation: 381 entries from 38 European countries. It also benefits from the collaboration of a network of 10 architecture and urban planning institutions and 50 experts from across the continent.

The winning project will be announced on October 15 in Barcelona, following a public session on October 14 where the five finalists will present their work to the jury.

Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes Square by AgenceTER, Ana Coello Paisatge i Arquitectura, Meta Engineering–Quadranteka. Photograph by Fernando Lua.

The projects selected for the 2026 European Prize for Urban Public Space and organized by the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), exemplify formal rigor, environmental sensitivity, and urban integration. These five projects directly contribute to improving the quality of life in European cities and—across various territorial scales—offer concrete responses to the climate crisis, ecological restoration, and social cohesion.

Infrastructure projects—ranging from 205 m² to 48 km—transformed into spaces that combat the climate crisis
The jury highlights the transformation of large areas into green spaces, such as the conversion of the former Vicenza airport into the Peace Park (Parco della Pace) and the redevelopment of docks and parking areas in Antwerp (Zuidpark); both projects focus on biodiversity and the water cycle.

The jury also recognized the ability to repurpose former transport infrastructure into spaces for social interaction. At the urban scale, the transformation of Plaça de les Glòries in Barcelona restructures the urban fabric by integrating public transport and traffic at a lower level, freeing up the surface area to create a park and climate refuge.

At the territorial scale, the Leça River green corridor in Matosinhos establishes a 48-kilometer landscape infrastructure connecting four municipalities, thereby promoting sustainable mobility and water management.

Finally, "Baños en la Rotonda" (Baths in the Roundabout ) in Logroño demonstrates the value of small-scale intervention—covering just 205 m²—by converting a roundabout into a temporary public restroom that serves as a climate refuge during extreme heatwaves.

Award Ceremony
A public session will be held at the CCCB on October 14, where each finalist team will present its project to the jury. Following these presentations, the jury will select the winning project, which will be announced at the award ceremony scheduled for the next day, October 15, at the same venue.

Finalist Projects

Zuidpark, 2024. Antwerp, Belgium
Tractebel, Atelier ADR, Georges Descombes

Zuidpark transforms a former car-dominated expanse, situated above Antwerp’s old docks, into a metropolitan "green lung." Its design balances the integration of biodiversity, the restoration of the water cycle, and the creation of new leisure and social spaces for the neighborhood.

Zuidpark by Tractebel, Atelier ADR and Georges Descombes. Photograph by Isabelle Pateer.

Plaza de las Glòries Catalanes, 2025. Barcelona, Spain
Agence Ter, Ana Coello Paisatge i Arquitectura, Meta Engineering–Quadranteka

The square's transformation turns a major traffic interchange into a hybrid space—part park, part plaza—establishing a new urban ecosystem. By moving city-scale traffic underground, the project prioritizes nature at surface level, serves as a climate refuge, and offers accessible green areas for community life.

Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes Square by AgenceTER, Ana Coello Paisatge i Arquitectura, Meta Engineering–Quadranteka. Photograph by Droneti BIMSA.

Rotunda Baths, 2025. Logroño, Spain
Leopold Banchini

Repurposing an obsolete roundabout, this project creates an ephemeral installation featuring public baths and a climate refuge to counter extreme heat. The intervention completely reimagines road infrastructure, transforming a space once dedicated to cars into an intimate, shared, human-scale meeting place.

Roundabout Baths by Leopold Banchini.

Leça Green Corridor, 2024. Matosinhos, Portugal
Laura Roldão

Stretching 48 kilometers and connecting four municipalities, this corridor adds 22 hectares of linear public space, serving as a key landscape infrastructure for environmental regeneration, water resilience, and sustainable mobility.

Leça Green Corridor by Laura Roldão.

Peace Park, 2025. Vicenza, Italy
Martí Franch Batllori–EMF, Studio Franco Zagari, ITS Engineering Company, PAN Associati

The Vicenza Airport Ecological Park transforms the former airfield site into a 65-hectare landscape that, through nature-based solutions, integrates water management, biodiversity restoration, and the creation of new communal spaces.

Peace Park by Martí Franch Batllori–EMF, Studio Franco Zagari, ITS Engineering Company and PAN Associati. Photograph by Isabelle Pateer.

International Jury
The international jury for this edition comprises renowned professionals from across Europe:

Chair and CCCB Representative
Eva Prats, an architect, co-director of the firm Flores & Prats, and a professor at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, boasts an extensive professional career. Her projects are noted for integrating architectural design with the urban context in a respectful, accessible, and sustainable manner.

Vocals
Angelika Fitz, architect and director of the Architekturzentrum Wien. She has worked internationally as a curator, educator, architect, and urban planner. Her approach focuses on the social contextualization of architecture and resource use from a planetary perspective.

Monika Konrad, architect and urban planner, is the Deputy Director of the Municipal Office of Architecture and Urban Planning in Warsaw. She has developed urban and architectural projects in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Inês Lobo, Portuguese architect, she founded her studio in 2002. She curated the Portuguese pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale with the proposal *Lisbon Ground*.

Bas Smets, a landscape architect, has carried out projects in 12 countries. His public space interventions are notable for their innovative and sustainable approach, aimed at addressing the challenges of climate change.

Philip Ursprung, Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at ETH Zurich, served as Dean of the ETH Department of Architecture from 2017 to 2019. In 2023, he represented Switzerland at the Venice Architecture Biennale alongside Karin Sander.

Secretary
Lluís Ortega holds a PhD in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), a degree in Philosophy from the University of Barcelona, and a Master of Science (AAD) from Columbia University.

25 years: an award with a European and social mission
The European Prize for Urban Public Space finds its natural setting in the European city, which—despite its diversity—shares certain common historical elements, such as human scale, compact design, and mixed-use character. Within this concept of the European city, public space plays a key role as a site for collective gathering, imbued with political, economic, and social values that are inseparable from the physical design that houses and enables them.

Over its 25-year history and 12 editions, the prize has received 2,800 entries from 43 member countries of the Council of Europe. Analyzing these entries reveals the evolution and shifting urban priorities in Europe during this period.

The Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB)
The CCCB is a multidisciplinary cultural center dedicated to exploring major themes of contemporary society through various languages and formats. It features an extensive program that includes major thematic exhibitions, lecture series, literary gatherings, audiovisual screenings, and festivals. Since its inception, the CCCB has fostered reflection on contemporary cities, recognizing them as the privileged arena for the transformations and challenges of the modern world.

Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes Square by AgenceTER, Ana Coello Paisatge i Arquitectura, Meta Engineering–Quadranteka. Photograph by Aitor Estevez.

Site plan. Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes Square by AgenceTER, Ana Coello Paisatge i Arquitectura, Meta Engineering–Quadranteka.

Site plan. Zuidpark by Tractebel, Atelier ADR and Georges Descombes.

Peace Park by Martí Franch Batllori–EMF, Studio Franco Zagari, ITS Engineering Company and PAN Associati. Photograph by Isabelle Pateer.

Site plan. Peace Park by Martí Franch Batllori–EMF, Studio Franco Zagari, ITS Engineering Company and PAN Associati.

Site plan. Leça Green Corridor by Laura Roldão.

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Henri Bava, Michel Hössler, Olivier Philippe. Agence Ter

Agence Ter Architectures. Henri Bava, Michel Hössler and Olivier Philippe, are the three founders of Agence Ter. Their team in Paris consists of some forty employees, fifteen nationalities, and over one hundred current projects in more than ten different countries.

Henri Bava. Born in Tunisia and raised between Tunisia and Paris, Henri Bava started his studies with a degree in plant biology from Paris-Orsay University. Showing a keen interest in the living world but from different perspectives, he enrolled afterwards in the École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage (ENSP) in Versailles in 1980, following at the same time a stage design course at the Jacques Lecoq École Internationale de Théâtre in Paris. He graduated as a DPLG landscape designer in 1984 with Michel Corajoud as supervisor, and worked for one year in his agency in Paris. In 1986, with his current associates, he founded Agence Ter. Just three years after obtaining his degree, he returned to the ENSP Versailles as a teacher, in parallel to his professional activities, for a period of ten years. As of 1989, after the departure of Michel Hössler for French Guyana, he headed the Agence Ter office in Paris together with Olivier Philippe. From 1993 to 1997, he combined this with work as a State Consultant Landscape Designer for the DDE of the Eure County. Henri Bava was elected president of the French Landscape Federation, a position held between 1996 and 1998.

It was at this time that he initiated his work in Germany. He led the execution of the Aqua Magica Park project near Hanover and was appointed at the same time, under a European recruitment process, as full professor and director of the Landscape department of the school of architecture at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), where he is still teaching today. In 2000, he created an Agence Ter office in Karlsruhe, from where he directed large cross-border territory development projects, rehabilitation projects for derelict industrial sites or the realisation of major public venues, such as in Duisburg. Six years later, he was elected a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts. After returning to Agence Ter Paris in 2007, he was elected president of the governing board of the École Nationale de la Nature et du Paysage, Blois (ENSNP) in 2010. That same year, Henri Bava was invited to the Harvard University Graduate School of Design by Charles Waldheim, director of the landscape department, where he often teaches in the frame of design studios until today.

Michel Hössler. Born and raised in the Paris metropolitan area, Michel Hössler obtained both the degrees of landscape architect (DPLG) and urban planner (DIUP). He studied botany at the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, followed by landscape architecture at the École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage (ENSP) in Versailles and urban planning at the Institut d’Urbanisme in Paris XII. In 1986 he founded the office of Agence Ter in Paris with his fellow student Henri Bava and Olivier Philippe, a colleague in the landscape architecture office of Alexandre Chemetoff.

From 1989 onwards, Michel Hössler was director of the branch office in Kourou, French Guyana, conceiving and realizing large-scale projects in Guyana as well as the West Indies. Since 2005, Michel Hössler has been again based in the Paris office, responsible for major urban projects throughout France and around the world, retaining his interest in projects in the tropics and developing a series of projects in China, including the French Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai International Exposition, with Jacques Ferrier Architects, and in 2016, the landscape design for the right banks of Shanghai’s Huangpu river.

From 2005, he has taught at the ENSP in Versailles, and for several years he has held the position of master assistant at the ENSA Paris – La Villette. With his two associates, he has led workshops in Urban and Landscape Design at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design as well as landscape design studios at the ETSAB in Barcelona.

Olivier Philippe. After being raised both in Paris and India, Olivier Philippe studied at the Special School of Architecture and Landscape of Paris, after which he joined the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He later graduated as a landscape architect from the National School of Landscape of Versailles. His professional career started with the crucial encounter with Alexandre Chemetoff, with whom he collaborated for five years. Afterwards, he became a consultant at the Parc de la Villette Public Establishment, involved in developing the park of Bernard Tschumi. During this period, he met Henri Bava and Michel Hössler, with whom he decided to create Agence Ter in 1986. One year later, and this for a period of seventeen years, he started teaching at the École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage, Versailles, in the framework of a project workshop, addressing all scales of the urban and territorial project, always with the landscape as driver for development.

From 1995 to 1998, he was State Consultant Landscape Designer for the Aisne County. From 1999 to 2006, as the only associate based in Paris, he was leading vast urban projects such as Euralille 2 (the Inhabited Wood), Portes d’Arcueil (La Vache Noire) or the North Bahrain New Town, whilst managing at the same time major public space and park projects (Cormailles Park in Ivry and, more recently, the Royal Canal Linear Park in Dublin and the Parc de Billancourt in Boulogne-Billancourt).

In 2008, Olivier Philippe chaired the NAJAP jury (new albums of young architects and landscape designers) and became a member of the French Europan governing board. The projects he currently leads include the Metropolitan Park of Saint-Ouen, the Square of “Les Glories Catalanes” in Barcelona, the renovation of the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, London and the urban and landscape design for the Condorcet Campus in Aubervilliers, Paris. In 2011, he taught at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design along with his two associates in the frame of a landscape and urban design studio. Olivier Philippe has also been a guest professor at other institutions, as, as a landscape design studio teacher at the ETSAB in Barcelona in 2016.

Distinctions.-

Prix Les Défis Urbains – 2016
Distinction pour le prix de l’urbanisme d’Allemagne 2014
Finaliste prix Innovative process, filtering gardens – 2014
Prix IBA – Exzellenz – 2013
Finaliste Prix European Garden Award 2013, catégorie Conception contemporaine innovante d’un parc ou d’un jardin
Prix de l’aménagement exemplaire de l’année – 2005/2012
7th European Urban and Regional Planning Awards 2008, catégorie projets transfrontaliers/ aménagement du territoire/ cohésion territoriale
Médaille 2008 de la Fondation de l’Académie française d’Architecture
Finaliste Prix Européen du Paysage Rosa Barba 2008
Grand Prix National du Paysage – 2007
Grand Prix Régional de l’Architecture et du Paysage – 2003
Finaliste Prix Européen du Paysage Rosa Barba 2001
Prix de la Première Œuvre
Prix du paysage 1994
Prix AMO 1994
Prix de l’Aménagement Urbain 1993 – Mention catégorie Espace Public
Trophée du Paysage 1991

Leopold Banchini

Leopold Banchini was born in Geneva in 1981 and is an architect graduated from the EPFL (Ecole Polytechinique Fédérale de Lausanne). He is also Master in Architecture from the University of Lausanne (2007) and graduate of the Glasgow School of Art (2004).

Is a visiting professor in the HEAD (Haute Ecole de Design et) in Geneva since 2010 and Assistant Professor at the EPFL since 2009. He has also been Archozoom project designer in 2009.

Has been placed in Lot / ek Architects (New York) between the years 2004/2005, as an assistant project Art Basel (Basel) in 2005, and as a project partner of the collective Atelier Van Lieshout (AVL) that same year in Rotterdam.

He has developed his work as an architect in b720 Arquitectos (Barcelona) during the years 2007 and 2008, and Group8 Architects (Geneva) in 2009.

In addition, since 2008 part of 1to100 Architects, and architectural collective based in Geneva. Its members have been active and decisive parts in projects such as the winning participation of Bahrain at the last Venice Biennale - RECLAIM Golden Lion 2011, exhibitions such as The Gulf - OMA-AMO's participation at the Venice Biennale 2007 and publications such as AMO-Rem Koolhaas's Al Manakh. Parallel to that, they conduce many different operations ranging from architecture, to journalism, until urban design. They have teaching positions at the EPFL and the University of Arts and Design in Geneva.

Its aim is to take position and initiate reflexions upon our contemporary environment.

Laura Roldão Costa

Laura Roldão Costa (São Sebastião da Pedreira, Lisbon, Portugal, 13 September 1963) is a landscape architect, researcher and educator. She graduated in Landscape Architecture from the Instituto Superior de Agronomia at the Technical University of Lisbon in 1988 and received her PhD in Landscape Architecture from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto in 2015.

In 2005, she founded her own practice in Porto, Laura Roldão Costa – Arquitectura Paisagista, where she develops projects in landscape architecture, urbanism and territorial planning, as well as project coordination and construction supervision. Her practice operates at different scales, with particular attention to biophysical conditions and ecosystem balance as determining factors in the design process, together with the social, cultural and economic factors that shape territories transformed by human activity.

Her work considers vegetation as one of the principal materials in the construction of landscape, addressing its evolution over time, adaptability, textures, volumes and chromatic variations. Plant selection prioritises native species, while also incorporating introduced species that form part of Portugal’s cultural and botanical landscape heritage. For Roldão Costa, landscape design does not end with the completion of construction, but continues through the development and maturation of the project, responding to ecological transformations and to the ways in which spaces are appropriated by their users.

Alongside her professional practice, she is active in teaching and research at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD), with a focus on landscape architecture, urban green spaces and the use of plant material. Her work has received several distinctions, including the Portuguese National Landscape Architecture Awards in 2011, 2012 and 2013, and the International Land Award – Nature and Artifice in 2022 for the Leça River Green Corridor.

Martí Franch Batllori. EMF

Martí Franch Batllori, EMF (Barcelona, Spain, 1971), is a landscape architect and agricultural engineer. He graduated in Agricultural Engineering, specialising in Horticulture and Gardening, from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC-ESAB) in 1993, and received a Diploma in Landscape Architecture from the University of Greenwich, United Kingdom, in 1998. Since 2014, he has been undertaking doctoral research at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) Europe. In 2016, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Design by the University of Greenwich.

After working at Büro Kiefer in Berlin in 1995 and at B+B Landscape & Urbanism in Amsterdam between 1996 and 1997, he founded EMF in 1999, a Girona-based practice focused on landscape, public space and territory. His work explores the relationships between ecological systems and cultural constructions, understanding design as a research tool capable of generating productive, adaptable landscapes closely connected to the specific conditions of each place.

Between 1998 and 1999, he coordinated the first edition of the European Landscape Biennial in Barcelona, and from 1999 to 2005 he served as landscape adviser to the Fundació Territori i Paisatge.

Alongside his professional practice, Franch has developed an extensive teaching career. Between 2001 and 2011, he taught in the Landscape Architecture master's programmes at ETSAB and, from 2002 to 2011, at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He has also been a guest lecturer at international institutions including RMIT in Melbourne, the École Nationale Supérieure de Paysage de Versailles, Edinburgh College of Art, the Amsterdamse Academie van Bouwkunst and Leibniz Universität Hannover.

Franco Zagari

Franco Zagari (Rome, Italy, 16 January 1945–21 June 2023) was an architect, landscape architect, professor and researcher. He graduated in Architecture from the Università di Roma La Sapienza in 1971. He began his academic career in Reggio Calabria in 1975 and, from the 1980s onwards, focused his professional, academic and theoretical work on landscape architecture, gardens and public space.

He was Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, where he founded the Dipartimento OASI, which he directed from 2002 to 2008, and for more than a decade coordinated the doctoral programme devoted to parks, gardens and territorial planning. He also taught at La Sapienza University of Rome. Between 1996 and 2004, he served as president of the Rome and Lazio section of IN/Arch.

Among his most significant works are the Italian Garden for Expo 1990 in Osaka, Piazza Matteotti in Catanzaro, the visitor centre for the prehistoric caves of Niaux, Piazza Montecitorio in Rome, the system of central squares in Saint-Denis, the seafront promenade in Porto Sant’Elpidio, the floating terrace on the EUR lake in Rome, and various proposals for the headquarters of the Presidency of the Republic of Georgia in Tbilisi. His project for the squares of Saint-Denis received the European Gubbio Prize in 2009.

His theoretical work developed in parallel with his professional practice through books, essays, exhibitions and documentaries. His publications include L’architettura del giardino contemporaneo (1988), Questo è paesaggio. 48 definizioni (2006), Giardini. Manuale di progettazione (2009) and Sul paesaggio. Lettera aperta (2013). In 1998, he was appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, and in 2014 he received the RomArchitettura Award for his professional career.

Published on: September 12, 2026

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