RIBA Worldwide Prize 2024 goes to ‘radical housing’ in Barcelona

The RIBA Worldwide Prize 2024 has been introduced, with Modulus Matrix: 85 Social Housing in Cornellà, designed by Peris + Toral Arquitectes in Barcelona, topped as the general winner. A longlist of twenty-two buildings, all RIBA Worldwide Award for Excellence 2024 winners, went on to compete for the highest gong. A shortlist of three from these – the opposite two are Jacoby Studios by David Chipperfield Architects Berlin and Lianzhou Museum of Pictures by O-office Architects – meant the jury had a troublesome time forward, deliberating to choose the cream of the crop; a troublesome job, contemplating the inspiring cross-disciplinary assortment of candidates.

RIBA Worldwide Prize 2024 winner

Modulus Matrix: 85 Social Housing in Cornellà designed by Peris + Toral Arquitectes, Spain

The RIBA’s bi-annual award casts its web far and large, in the hunt for the world’s (and its cycle’s) finest constructing. RIBA President Muyiwa Oki described the Peris + Toral Arquitectes work as ‘inspiring’, including that it is ‘a robust instance of the methods through which architects can create new and implementable options to the widespread problem of making housing for all’.

Working with a mass timber construction and sustainable structure rules, the constructing achieves low CO₂ emissions. Conceived to be adaptive and inclusive the scheme was praised by the jury for its matrix of properties organised round a central courtyard. The six-storey constructing of 85 properties close to Barcelona was loosely impressed by the architects’ analysis into movies of Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu who explored day by day household life.

Marta Peris and Jose Toral, co-founders of Peris + Toral Arquitectes, mentioned: ‘Profitable the RIBA Worldwide Prize is a recognition of a few years targeted on housing that gives new methods of dwelling. We’re very pleased with the optimistic suggestions from residents of Modulus Matrix. Some have been not sure about options like coming into by a terrace, having an open kitchen on the centre of the house, and equal-sized rooms with out corridors, however their views modified after dwelling within the area. Now they really feel this way of life higher adapts to their wants. Their first-hand experiences present priceless insights into how housing around the globe can evolve.’

The award was based to reward a construction that demonstrates ‘visionary pondering, originality, excellence of execution, and makes a definite contribution to its customers, surrounding atmosphere and communities’, the RIBA explains.

RIBA Worldwide Prize 2024 shortlist

Jacoby Studios, Paderborn, Germany, by David Chipperfield Architects Berlin

Within the medieval city of Paderborn, Germany, David Chipperfield Architects Berlin has reinvented and prolonged current buildings – a chapel and Seventeenth-century cloister – to create a brand new HQ for a household enterprise. New concrete and timber parts restore current stone and brick partitions, and are left uncovered in a fragile and harmonious patchwork of outdated and new.

Lianzhou Museum of Pictures, Lianzhou, China, by O-office Architects

Set on the positioning of an outdated sugar mill within the comparatively distant, southern Chinese language metropolis of Lianzhou, this museum is a big complicated comprising a refurbished warehouse and a brand new aspect. It was praised within the 2021 RIBA Worldwide Awards cycle, however could not be visited on the time as a result of pandemic, so was re-entered for this cycle.