Winners 2025
The EUmies Awards Day marked a key moment in European architecture by announcing the winners of the EUmies Awards Young Talent 2025, recognising exceptional student projects that respond to today’s social, urban, and environmental challenges.
The event, held within the context of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, brought together winners, jury members, and institutional representatives for a day of dialogue around four key themes: Artificial, Natural, Collective, and Intelligens.
The European Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport, Mr. Glenn Micallef, shared a video message to congratulate all involved: “These awards have become synonymous with European excellence, and today we celebrate exceptional young talent shaping Europe’s built environment. Your work is essential in crafting more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient spaces that reflect our shared history, values, and vision for the future. Architecture is not only an expression of European identity – it is a unifying force that brings us together.”
EUmies Awards Young Talent 2025 + Open 2025 WINNERS
Urban planning
Brave New Axis
Young Talent 2025
YT Winners
Spyridon Loukidis · Markos Georgios Sakellion · Georgios Thalassinos
Axis, an imaginary line that connects, divides, shaping space and movement. Its points hold unseen multiplicities—if they change, does the whole transform? With this begins an enquiry, a project redefining a strict 19th-century line, that comes to delineate the anarchic ancient form of Athens.
EUmies Awards Young Talent
Education
Forest & Phoenix
Young Talent 2025
YT Winners
Vera Kellmann · Carolina von Hammerstein
The increase in forest fires requires multidisciplinary approaches for the development of necessary measures. Architecture can be seen as a mediator of the correlations in order to make them visible. The design introduces hybrid infrastructures as mediation spaces for the prevention of forest fires.
EUmies Awards Young Talent
Mixed use – Cultural & Social
Hotel Interim
Young Talent 2025
YT Winners
Andreas Stanzel
Hotel Interim reassesses the material and immaterial value of a soon to be demolished hotel in Halle. It explores how the vacant space could serve as an interim of the University of Arts, viewing the building as a resource, the space as a site for experimentation, and its current state as a stage.
EUmies Awards Young Talent
Mixed use – Cultural & Social
Poolside Politics
Young Talent 2025
YT Open Winners
James Langlois
A collective of marginalized citizens gathers at the water’s edge of Piscine Luminy, united by a vision to revive this once vibrant civic oasis. Through a construction-driven Radical Municipalism, they aim to reimagine/restore the beloved municipal pool, reclaiming it for the people of Marseille.
EUmies Awards Young Talent
Award Presentations and Conversations
- Mr. Normunds Popens, Deputy Director-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, presented the award for Brave New Axis to Spyridon Loukidis, Markos Georgios Sakellion, and Georgios Thalassinos (National Technical University of Athens). A discussion followed with jury member Jason O’Shaughnessy on the role of public space in cities.
- Mrs. Jutta Kastner, Creative Europe policy officer, awarded Forest & Phoenix to Carolina von Hammerstein and Vera Kellmann (Technical University of Berlin), followed by a discussion on materiality and greening in Europe with jury member Maibritt Dammann.
- Mr. Roberto Cavallo, President of the European Association of Architectural Education (EAAE), presented the award for Hotel Interim to Andreas Stanzel (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar), and joined jury member Ana Dana Beroš in a conversation on collectivity in architecture.
- Mrs. Ruth Schagemann, President of the Architects’ Council of Europe, announced the winner of the Young Talent Open: Poolside Politics by James Langlois (University of Westminster, London). They spoke with jury member Konstantinos Pantazis on themes of collectivity and nature.
The day concluded with a final joint discussion among the winners, the awarding of diplomas to all finalists and shortlisted participants, and a visit to the updated exhibition.
Collective Reflections on the Winning Projects
The jury emphasized that the selected projects reflect a generation of architects attuned to the complexity of contemporary society. These works transcend conventional architectural practices, addressing topics like urban fragmentation, climate resilience, interim reuse, and community-driven design:
Brave New Axis reconfigures Athens’ historical urban grid, creating new spatial connections that promote inclusivity and mobility.
Forest & Phoenix imagines hybrid infrastructures to combat and prevent forest fires, emphasizing ecology and public space.
Hotel Interim demonstrates the potential of temporary use and transformation, turning a condemned hotel into a learning hub.
Poolside Politics reclaims an abandoned municipal pool in Marseille as a symbol of civic empowerment and radical municipalism.
Together, these projects signal a shift towards architectural practices grounded in social engagement, environmental responsibility, and collective action.
The EUmies Awards Young Talent 2025 is enriched with the Young Talent Open, open to schools from Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and members of the Council of Europe which are not part of Creative Europe. Young Talent Open is an initiative of the Fundació Mies van der Rohe and not funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sports and Culture. Neither the European Union nor the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sports and Culture can be held responsible for them.