The Kharkiv School of Architecture, Ukraine, has actively participated in this project, carrying out the trophies with reused Ukrainian oak wood. During the awards ceremony, a video was shown showing how the trophies were produced, giving visibility to the process and the country.
During the act, important issues about the past, present and future were addressed, such as "Cultural heritage and memory", "Cartographies and identity", "New Ecologies in the City" and "Exchange and roots".
The winners will receive support in creating a network with the architects and critics involved in the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture. In addition, a monetary prize, visibility, participation in the event and USM furniture among others will be awarded.
Young Talent 2023 winning projects
Eden Archipelago by María de la O Molina Pérez-Tomé. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Escuela de arquitectura de Madrid).
A brilliant proposal that addresses a very pertinent and contemporary theme: providing the city with a place for the preservation and growth of plant species that nourish all its green spaces from the heart, without depending on external imports. Eden Archipelago provides the city with self-sufficiency in its regeneration and care of the flora. The jury wants to highlight the extensive research and documentation work on which this project is based and the excellent technical development that has been carried out. The project proposes an open system that recovers the architectures of Buckminster Fuller, updating and adapting them to our contemporary times. The jury highlights the optimism and freshness that this proposal brings to the current climate emergency context.
Peripheral Cartographies by Laura Hurley. University College Cork & Munster Technological University (School of Engineering and Architecture, SEFS).
This project talks about the exploration of architectural processes that open up and display the potential of what architecture can be. Through cartographic generation, as a method of recognition and identity of a specific place, an architectural system of unfinished artifacts emerges on the landscape that claim with their witness the lost memory of the original place. The project is positioned as a political declaration and a tool for the decolonization of the territory. The jury highlights the excellence of this project as an example that illustrates the importance of unrestricted freedom in the explorative and speculative approach to architectural projects in the academic field.
Valter by Dinko Jelecevic. Graz University of Technology (Faculty of Architecture).
This project deals with the heritage and memory of the place through the insertion of an architectural proposal as an activating layer on its pre-existences. Faced with oblivion and contemplation, it proposes a civic use; cultural, artistic and educational activity, a new activating and representative narrative layer for all the citizens of Sarajevo. The project is based on a precise understanding of the pre-existence and proposes a delicate and sophisticated intervention that operates through the poetics of light and tectonics, dignifying and giving life to the place. This project is an excellent example of an architectural intervention on an existing building, on how to treat heritage with respect and delicacy, but being proactive and active. The jury wants to highlight how this project excellently represents the potential of architecture as a conciliatory tool between the past and the present, illustrating how to move forward.
Winning project Young Talent Open 2023
Earth Bound by Shaha Raphael. Architectural Association School of Architecture.
The jury highlights the high degree of maturity that this project exudes in its way of interpreting the territory in which it intervenes, starting from a deep knowledge of the geological landscape and the vernacular construction techniques that define it to create at the same time a contemporary and hypercontextualized. This project proposes a construction process and an architecture as a meeting point between the territory and the community of people who inhabit it. It proposes a contemporary way of living outside of the urban, in harmony with the landscape and in community, and an intelligent application of new technologies at the service of the essence of the place and on a human scale.
