ECOLA Award 2015: European Plaster Award has been presented for eighth time

During the jury session under the chairmanship of Sir Peter Cook (Crab Studio, London, UK) on 8 May in Berlin, two first prizes and three special mentions were awarded.

The ECOLA Award (until 2004 “Bundesdeutscher Architektur-preis Putz”) is organised every two years by Sto and the Bun-desverband Ausbau und Fassade im Zentralverband des Deutschen Baugewerbes and divided in two categories: Refur-bishment/Renovation/Conversion and New Buildings, each complemented with the category of CO2-optimised construction. Sir Peter Cook (Crab Studio, London, UK) acted as chairman for the award, which was initiated for the eighth time already. The five-member jury awarded two first prizes and three special mentions after the assessment of all 149 projects, which had been carefully selected by 19 nomination jurors from 13 countries.

A precondition for the selection procedure was the application of plaster as a building material characterising the architecture. 38 projects were assigned to the Refurbish-ment/Renovation/Conversion category, while 111 came under the New Buildings category, 94 of which had the CO2-optimised construction label. This additional category should make it possible to separately acknowledge a high design quality in connection with energy-efficient planning.

The jury, however, arrived at the conclusion not to award sepa-rate prizes for CO2-optimised construction as in previous years, because today energy efficiency and architectural quality be-long together. The organisers of the ECOLA Award accepted the recommendation of the jury and decided to direct the focus of the ECOLA Conference, which will take place in England in September 2015, at the issue of internationally valid contempo-rary assessment criteria for energy-efficient building.

The large atrium in the Berlin branch office of Sto SE & Co. KGaA, which was completed by Hans Kollhoff in 1997, was perfectly suited for the jury session on 8 Mai 2015. The jury comprised the following members: Sir Peter Cook, London, UK (jury chairman); Brian Cody, Graz, AT; Hubert Klumpner, Zu-rich, CH; Dorte Mandrup, Copenhagen, DK; Enrique Sobejano, Madrid, ES.


Winners of the ECOLA-Award

1st prize: Refurbishment/Renovation/Conversion category
Conversion of a stone house in the Scaiano village centre, CH
wespi de meuron romeo architekten bsa ag, Caviano, CH
www.wdmra.ch

1st prize: New Buildings category
High Performance Rowing Centre in Pocinho, PT
spacialAR-TE, Porto, PT
www.facebook.com/spacialarte/timeline

Special mentions: Refurbishment/Renovation/Conversion category
OostCampus, Oostkamp, BE
Carlos Arroyo Architects SLP, Madrid, ES
www.carlosarroyo.net

Special mention: New Buildings category
Housing at the old citywall, Berlin, DE
Atelier Zafari, Berlin, DE
www.atelier-zafari.com

Special mention: New Buildings category
86 Apartments, Lyon, FR
Eric Lapierre Architecture, Paris, FR
www.ericlapierre.com


The award ceremony will take place in the context of the ECO-LA Conference from 24 to 26 September 2015 in England. Par-ticipants of the congress are all prize winners as well as the competition and nomination jurors. In lectures and workshops, the conference provides the opportunity to intensively analyse plaster as a building material with regards to its practical appli-cation and its technical and creative development.

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Image captions

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The jury (from left to right): Prof. Brian Cody (TU Graz), Prof. Enrique Sobejano (Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, Madrid), Prof. Hubert Klumpner (ETH Zurich), Dorte Mandrup (Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter, Copenhagen), Sir Peter Cook (Crab Studio, London)
Photo: Sto SE & Co. KGaA, Stühlingen

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The entries, which had been shortlisted after the jury’s first as-sessment rounds, were discussed most intensely.
Photo: Sto SE & Co. KGaA, Stühlingen

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Led the jury through exciting discussions: Sir Peter Cook.
Photo: Sto SE & Co. KGaA, Stühlingen

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149 projects from 16 European countries had been pre-selected by an international nomination jury.
Photo: Sto SE & Co. KGaA, Stühlingen

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1st prize New Buildings category: spacialAR-TE from Portugal
Photo: ECOLA-Award

[15-25-Ecola-Umbau_1]
1st prize Refurbishment/Renovation/Conversion category:
wespi de meuron romeo architekten bsa ag from Switzerland
Photo: ECOLA-Award

[15-25-Ecola-Erw-Neu_1]
Special mention, New Buildings category: Atelier Zafari from Germany
Photo: ECOLA-Award

[15-25-Ecola-Erw-Umbau]
Special mention, Refurbishment/Renovation/Conversion cate-gory: Carlos Arroyo Architects SLP from Spain
Photo: ECOLA-Award

[15-25-Ecola-Erw-Lyon]
Special mention, New Buildings category: Eric Lapierre Archi-tecture from France
Photo: ECOLA-Award