Winners Archiprix 2023:
Justyna Chmielewska, Jacopo Zani, Osarieme Isokpan, Steven van Raan

On Saturday October 21 the independent jury announced the winners of the 43st edition of Archiprix Netherlands. The announcement took place from the exhibition currently on show at CASA Vertigo at the Eindhoven University of Technology. The line-up of the jury is as follows: Janneke Bierman (architecture), Darius Reznek (landscape architecture), Lisa van der Slot (urban design), Bruno Vermeersch (interior architecture) and Johan de Walsche (theory/research).
 
Three shared first prizes (in alphabetical order)
Choreographing Resilience, designed by Justyna Chmielewska, AvB Amsterdam (landscape architecture)
This project makes a convincing case to restore the presence and ecology of the river Strzyza in Gdańsk (Poland). The designer's profound understanding of water flows and water management in all its facets has produced the most natural strategy to reduce water levels and revive the basin. The perspective of naturalness of a nowadays petrified neighborhood empowers the inhabitants to wield this strategy. It is a well-targeted and viable line of approach and makes a convincing case for citizen activation within a broader plan.

Gardens of Dialectics: A Story of Decay and Reconstruction, designed by Jacopo Zani, TU Delft (architecture)
The project investigates the possible futures of the former mining-economy company town of Waterschei in Belgian Limburg. Armed with a philosophy of enough is enough, the project succeeds in achieving the greatest impact with a minimum of means. The jury was deeply impressed by the loving care with which the dilapidated buildings have been repaired. The detailed fragments make the designer's concept credible, in turn rendering the project's ultimate aim credible too. The designer has succeeded admirably in creating a new aesthetic that invites other ways to accommodate the existing.

Tentoonstelling voor Verbeelding, designed by Steven van Raan, AvB Amsterdam (architecture)
In a triumphant ode to the imagination the design creates unique perspectives and ways of thinking that present a dramatic alternative to established design methods. A combination of surrealism and associative thinking is staged to conceive an architecture that is able to act on and activate the collective memory. The designer has made a truly remarkable job of organizing the complexity of the project's immense quantity of collages, drawings and studies in order to arrive at architecture. Unlike the other winning designs, Exhibition for Imagination activates its designer first and foremost, as a consummate craftsman and a first-rate design talent.

Honourable mention
Learning from Slums: The New Vernacular, designed by Osarieme Isokpan, AvB Maastricht (interior architecture)
The answer on the question how do we prepare for the inevitable collapse of civilization comes from the slums of Lagos. This entry proves how this unexpected perspective can be a rich source of inspiration for survival strategies in the event of flooding in an urban environment. In this case Maastricht. It presents a fundamental rethink of how we can organize and give shape to our living environment from a new perspective on raw materials, urgency and the dynamics of transformation. While the focus of the project is on the micro scale of the interior, the project's eventual relevance is at the urban planning scale.

download jury report (English) | download juryrapport (Nederlands)

fotos: Fred Ernst

EXHIBITION
The exhibition Archiprix Netherlands 2023 presents all 25 participating projects. It is on show in CASA Vertigo from October 12 till December 15, Monday to Friday 8.00 - 19.00 hours.