Architecture News

Housing Nonprofit HouseEurope! Honored with 2025 Obel Award

HouseEurope!, a housing policy lab advocating for adaptive reuse over demolition, has been honored with the 2025 Obel Award. Founded by Berlin studio bplus.xyz and station.plus, a research platform at ETH Zurich’s Institut for Design and Architecture, the non-profit organization is spearheading a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) that aims to “make building renovation and transformation simpler, more affordable, and socially just.” If it secures one million signatures across all EU member states by January 31, 2026, the European Commission must formally convene a dedicated working group to consider their petition.

As the seventh laureate of the Obel Award, HouseEurope! joins the ranks of Mexico City-based Colective C733’s 36x36 social architecture initiative and SCAPE’s Living Breakwaters coastal resiliency project in New York and New Jersey, among others. The annual 100,000-euro prize, supported by the Copenhagen-based Henrik F. Obel Foundation, seeks to highlight unconventional approaches that realize architecture’s potential as an agent of social and ecological change. For each cycle, a jury of architects and distinguished professionals selects a new focus that “recognizes the importance, fragility, and challenges of the present era.”

This year’s theme, Ready Made, urges architects to “rethink, repurpose, and amplify existing resources” for the future of our built environment. HouseEurope! rises to the call, not through a lone revitalization scheme—so often stymied from wide-scale adoption by systemic barriers—but in “building broad momentum to change the very fundamentals of what gets built—and how.” The organization’s effort to weave renovation into European housing culture hinges on three legislative proposals: providing tax reductions for renovation and material reuse, implementing EU-wide standards for risk assessment of existing buildings, and mandating calculations of CO2 emissions associated with extant structures.

The 2025 Obel Award jury. Pictured left to right: Xu Tiantian, Sumayya Vally, Nathalie de Vries, Anne Marie Galmstrup, and Aric Chen. Photo by Jake Morris, courtesy Obel Award

“HouseEurope! redefines what architectural impact can be,” explains jury chair Nathalie de Vries, founding partner of MVRDV. “By challenging the culture of demolition and calling for legislative change, it shows that working with existing buildings shouldn’t be just a design choice but a social and environmental imperative.” Joining de Vries on the 2025 Obel Award jury were Anne Marie Galmstrup, founder of London-based Galmstrup Architects; Aric Chen, incoming director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation and RECORD contributor; Sumayya Vally, principal and founder of Johannesburg studio Counterspace; and Xu Tiantian, founding principal of Beijing-based DnA_Design and Architecture, a 2009 Design Vanguard firm.

Recognizing HouseEurope! with the 2025 Obel Award is meant to be not only a source of inspiration but also a rallying cry to architects everywhere. “Cities have become prohibitively expensive to live in. HouseEurope!’s initiative clearly shows that taking action, rather than simply taking orders from clients, is more urgent than ever,” remarks Obel Award executive director Jesper Eis Eriksen. “Beyond celebrating the award, I hope that this encourages similar movements worldwide and mobilizes all of us to use our voice for a better Europe.”

The 2025 Obel Award will be officially presented on October 21 in Brussels.

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