Open Call for IV Edition of Living Places – Simon Architecture Prize 2022

The IV edition of the biennial Living Places – Simon Architecture Prize for architecture nominations and registrations can now be made until the 15th of September via www.simonprize.org. Inscription and participation are entirely free of charge and the winning teams receive a cash prize of 10.000 €. The vocation of this recognition is to distinguish those architectural projects (including interiors, public spaces and landscaping) whose excellence enhances the capacity of the spaces to ensure the comfort of its inhabitants. Architectures that turn into higher quality spaces for people in their day-to-day lives: to work, to learn, to wait, to play… Architectures to live in.

Collective Places and Personal Places are the two categories of the award, reflecting an interest in architecture projected and explained through the point of view of the inhabitant, and focusing on experiences that challenge the space, its design and resolution.

Video, considered the perfect tool for bringing architecture closer to the general public and the most suitable medium for transmitting the atmosphere of the venue, is the main presentation format.

The jury for this edition is made up of: London-based Brazilian architect Carla Juaçaba; architect and editor of the Polish magazine Architecture Snob Marcin Szczelina; Belgian architect Wendy Saunders from the Shanghai-based studio AIM Architecture, Eduard Callís from the unparelld’arquitectes studio as former winner in the Collective Places category and finally Salvi Plaja, Corporate Director of Design and Sustainability at Simon Design Director and President of ADI-FAD. 

This jury will choose, among the submitted audiovisual pieces, the one that has best captured the values of the Prize. First, it will select five finalist works for each category, among which the winning work will be chosen. The two creators of the winning works will receive a financial contribution of €10,000 in each category.

In 2020, in the Personal Places category, the award went to Can Sau. Emergency Scenery, in Olot (Spain), by the unparelld’arquitectes studio, won the award in the Collective Places category; while the winning project in the Personal Places category was Casa Ter, by the MESURA studio in the Baix Empordà area (Spain). 

The jury decided to award a Special Mention to the film directed by Romain Loiseau & Tristan Soreau on the project for the Institute for Molecular Sciences in Orsay (France) by Kaan Architecten + Fres Architectes.

The other awards received by the winning projects reflect the quality of the proposals submitted for the prize, such as the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2019 achieved by Lacaton&Vassal, the Oscar Niemeyer 2018 Award for the project by Isaac Broid + Productora and the FAD Awards granted to the projects by Flores&Prats and Lluís Alexandre.

Works by authors who are qualified architects, city planners and/or landscapers are invited to participate. The authors can be residents of any country, and of any age and nationality, and can submit their entry individually or as part of a multi-disciplinary team. 

Until 15 September, those works completed and put into use during the two calendar years prior to the award, built in European, Brazilian or Mexican territory, may be nominated for the award. 

The opening event took place on 21 June at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion.

Architects Carla Juaçaba and Ángela García de Paredes presented their work and talked in an initial face-to-face event held at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion during the launch of the fourth edition of Living Places – Simon Architecture Prize 2022. 

All nominations must be submitted via the official website.

Entries can be nominated by their architects, but also by collaborators, clients and/or users who wish to nominate projects known to them, by pre-registering on the website. This contest allows architects to nominate their own work, as well as being an opportunity for clients who are very satisfied with the result of their commission, or inhabitants of a space they feel very comfortable living in, or students who visit a library they are inspired by, or suppliers who feel involved in an architectural project… and for those who want to share their feelings, to enter a nomination themselves through a pre-registration by filling out a form on the website. Authors of the proposals will receive an email informing them that their work has been nominated, with instructions to register officially. Both pre-registering and registering a participation in the prize is free, and with no quantitative limit.

A website for viewing architecture made to be lived in, on video

The idea behind the Living Places prizes is for entries to be presented in video format. In the previous edition, Simon launched a new website where users can view the archive with hundreds of videos presented in the two previous editions. The format allows users to filter the content through different lenses, with more than 15 concept types (single-family home, collective housing, community development and social wellbeing, cultural, educational, food and accommodation, healthcare, sports or spiritual installations, infrastructures, commercial installations, offices, landscapes, urban planning…). Videos can also be filtered by author, and by whether the work is a new build, refurbishment, extension, conversion or temporary architecture.

For more information and images, visit the Instagram profile @simon_prize