Finalists of the Living Places by Simon Architecture Prize 2022

The fourth edition of the biennial Living Places – Simon Architecture Prize (2022) received a total of 224 nominations for projects completed in the last two years. Out of all the projects nominated, architecture firms from 186 projects, from 34 different countries, submitted videos for consideration.

This prize is characterised by a focus from the inhabitant’s perspective. To achieve this, this prize uses the video format as the basic document for explaining the work, as well as a participation process that includes users and allows them to determine the works they feel worthy of the jury’s consideration.

The five finalists include an architectural project of a kiosk, a spiritual centre, a health centre, a school, a “pillar” that is one in a series of pillars strategically located in vulnerable areas of the city that lack cultural infrastructures. All are exceedingly generous and emphasise community involvement in social spaces of resolution, making them highly poetic.

The finalists in the Collective Places category, all of which are new constructions – some of which use existing materials – represent a diverse group of projects in terms of context and agenda, but share a fairly similar scale and considerable social impact.

Collectivity is generally accomplished with community centres through programs ranging from natural landscapes to port areas in transformation; in one of Mexico City’s most densely populated neighbourhoods and its expanding outskirts, or in the outskirts of a Mediterranean city.

Most of the nominees for the Personal Places category are large-scale single-family dwellings, except for a collective housing project in Palma, which focuses on the comfort of one of its units – a home. The language and materials used by each architectural team are very different.

They include traditional materials and technological devices for a better adaptation to our current ecological challenges. The evolution of these personal places can be seen in the lives of their inhabitants, the role of nature and the life of objects. Many of the videos for this category focus on tactility, introspection and detail.

The jury of Living Places – Simon Architecture Prize 2022 met in person at La Casa de la Luz (Simon’s flagship in Madrid) and by video conference to discuss the participating works. The jury studied all the proposals and reviewed the videos, plans, photographs and writings submitted by the participants in the 186 projects. Source and photos Courtesy of simon.

Collective Places
Health Center Cap Cotet, Premià de Dalt, Barcelona (Spain)
Baas Arquitectura