SPACE IS THE PLACE—Invent New Uses for Old Places
Techne Sphere Leipzig (Niemeyerstraße 2-5 04179 Leipzig)
Berlin 10117
Germany
The Perspektive Fund is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Ideas Competition for Architecture: SPACE IS THE PLACE—Invent New Uses for Old Places.
The competition invited applicants to work with a disused building, or one whose use is currently being questioned, in order to give it a new function.
From among the seventy-seven entries, the jury selected five winning projects for three awards, with prize amounts of 5,000 EUR, 3,000 EUR, and 2,000 EUR. The third prize was shared equally among three projects, each receiving 666 EUR. Four additional projects were selected for inclusion in the exhibition to be presented at the awards ceremony.
First Prize: Justice Under Construction by Jenny Neubig, Maura Schmitt and Mascha Creutz (Berlin, Germany)
The jury was impressed by the originality of the project concept, which proposes the rehabilitation of the Cologne Court of Justice building. It draws inspiration from the historic Dombauhütten, or masons’ lodges, which were temporarily built adjacent to construction sites of medieval cathedrals, allowing craftsmen to collectively exchange ideas, experiences, and develop new skills. It supports a process of continuous transformation, opposing the idea of a renovation project that is preplanned and executed at once.
Second Prize: Garden for Eternity: Monument to the Energy Transition by Carl Wolff (Berlin, Germany)
The jury was particularly touched by the poetic scope of this proposal, which reimagines the massive industrial relic of the former Stendal nuclear power plant in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany as a meditative and living landscape.
Third Prize (shared): OFF—Open Floor Frankfurt by Moritz Hahn, Mark Balint, and Jakob Bittner (Würzburg, Germany)
The jury valued the project’s investigative approach and critical reading of the urban landscape. Through a careful and articulated process revolving around social and economic issues, the project highlights a striking reality: the largely under-occupied business district is symptomatic of a structural imbalance between built production and social needs.
Third Prize (shared): The Blue Castle by Helena Kehl (Kiel & Stuttgart, Germany)
The jury commended this project for its narrative strength and the joy it conveys. The project retraces the trajectory of a neglected social housing complex in the rural region of Brandenburg, Germany. The project embodies a spirit of reclamation through everyday practices such as shared gardens, outdoor kitchens, and spontaneous acts of reappropriation, offering a place of rural reinvention and mapping out a new, more flexible, and informal form of collective life.
Third Prize (shared): Manifesto for Chimney Gardens by Rachel Rouzaud and Bernadetta Budzik (Paris, France)
The jury was impressed by the extensive research focusing on the false façades of Paris’s tenth arrondissement. The jury also praised the project’s ecological relevance and pragmatism, which repurposes polluting ventilation shafts as organic filtering systems adapted to the specific microclimate of underground infrastructures. By mobilizing plants and fungi with depolluting properties, the project offers a powerful manifesto: it reconciles nature and architecture while advocating for a city more attuned to contemporary urban challenges.
The four additional projects were selected for the exhibition (in alphabetical order by project title): Gesund schrumpfen? Rethinking Rural Futures, by Lisa-Marie Byhan, Benedikt Ahlers, and Till Baümer-Kern (Weimar, Germany); No Parking, by Simpert Hafenmeier (Berlin, Germany); Palimpsestes, when the remains become a stage, by Louna Benloulou (Paris, France); (Re)Inventing the Fuel Station, by Max Hofmeister (Hanover, Germany).
The Perspektive Fund thanks the jury members of this year’s edition for their engagement: Matthias Ballestrem (architect, professor at the Technical University of Dortmund), Yann Motreff (architect, co-founder of alHOMora and curator of Béton Le Havre), Joanne Pouzenc (architect, teacher at ENSA Toulouse and director of the Maison de l’Architecture Occitanie-Pyrenées), and Elena Schütz (architect, co-founder of Something Fantastic).
The awards ceremony will take place on November 7 at Techne Sphere Leipzig (Niemeyerstraße 2-5 04179 Leipzig), starting at 6pm (free admission).
The Perspektive Fund is supported by the Institut français, the French Ministry of Culture, and the Goethe-Institut.
