The 2025 Obel Award is scooped not by an architect or building, but by a movement

The 2025 Obel Award winner has just been announced. Non-profit organisation HouseEurope! has scooped the prestigious accolade, which celebrates and rewards individuals and groups who best showcase architecture's potential to 'act as tangible agents of change.' And isn't this year's winner a fitting choice. HouseEurope! was set up as a policy lab and citizen-led initiative, flagging the need for a shift in the way construction and housing works in Europe.

Meet 2025 Obel Award winner, HouseEurope!

'HouseEurope! demonstrates the scale, agency, and responsibility inherent in architecture. As architects, we are not merely practitioners who receive and execute instructions – we can and should act as civic agents within the political and social frameworks to work towards the common good,' said MVRDV's co-founder Nathalie de Vries, chair of the OBEL Jury.

Architecture should be seen as a tool for the public good, say HouseEurope! Part of the group's goals include rethinking the way renovation and building transformations happen - making them 'easier, affordable and socially just.' The organisation is currently collecting signatures, aiming at one million in total across all EU member states, in order to bring its case in front of the relevant authorities and make an impact through change.

'Every minute, a building in Europe is destroyed – not by natural disasters, but by financial speculation. And while a few profit, we all pay the price: with rising rents and rising temperatures. We’re running out of time! HouseEurope! is a call to action: sign and support now to stop the demolition drama and renovate, don’t speculate!' said Olaf Grawert and Alina Kolar, co-initiators and campaign managers at HouseEurope!.

Past Obel Award winners have included last year's announcement of 36x36 by Colectivo C733 in Mexico; Scape and its founder Kate Orff in 2023; Seratech’s innovative sustainable cement in 2022; Carlos Moreno and 15-Minute City in 2021; a Bangladeshi community building by Anna Heringer in 2020; and Art Biotop Water Garden by Junya Ishigami in 2019, which was the inaugural year.

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obelaward.org