BigMat International Architecture Award 2025: Finalist Projects Revealed

Now in its seventh edition, the BigMat International Architecture Award is widely regarded as one of Europe’s leading platforms for promoting architectural excellence. Since its inception in 2005, and following its international expansion in 2013, the award has built a solid track record of bringing together renowned architects and emerging talent, offering an outstanding snapshot of contemporary architecture across Europe.

In 2025, the jury faced the daunting challenge of creating a shortlist from nearly 700 entries submitted from the seven countries where BigMat operates. The final deliberations, held in Madrid, brought together a distinguished panel of experts chaired by Jesús Aparicio and including leading figures such as Anne Lacaton (Pritzker Prize 2021), Oana Bogdan, Francesca Torzo, José Neves, Martin Jančok and María Langarita.

Two Grand Prizes, One Shared Vision

As in previous editions, the competition features two main accolades:

• BigMat Grand Prize for Architecture (€30,000), awarded to the most outstanding architectural work of recent years in Europe.
• Grand Prize for Proximity Architecture (€30,000), showcasing projects developed through collaboration between architects, builders and the BigMat building material distribution platforms.

2025 finalists

The shortlist reflects some of the most pressing concerns of contemporary architecture today:

BELGIUM

• Charleroi Palais des Expo – AM architecten jan de vylder inge vinck + AgwA
  Instead of replacing the existing foyer hall, the architects opened up the structure to the city, stripping away façades to create covered terraces and public boulevards. The transformation reimagines the building as a surreal “zero energy” urban space, integrating views of Charleroi’s industrial landscape while adapting the programme with inventive pragmatism.

• Kurth – Olivier Fourneau Architects
  Located beside a Protestant church in Liège, the project creates a refined dialogue between past and present. Its sculptural brick volumes reinterpret traditional forms—bay windows, parapets, chimneys—while preserving a monomaterial identity. The result is a bold yet sensitive urban insertion, echoing both modernist and vernacular influences.

CZECH REPUBLIC

• Automatic Mills Grain Silo Conversion – Prokš Přikryl architekti
  Part of the revitalisation of Hradec Králové’s industrial heritage, the century-old silo has been transformed into a public building while preserving its monumental essence. Interventions open the ground floor to the city, introduce a multipurpose hall and accessible rooftop, and reveal the raw interior of the grain bins, celebrating the building’s industrial past.

FRANCE

• Lac du Temple nautical facility – Hérard & da Costa architects
  Designed to stage canoe-kayak training in the lead-up to the Paris 2024 Olympics, the facility integrates discreetly into its natural lakeside setting. Built partially below ground with a vegetated roof, bio-sourced materials, and reversible foundations, the project prioritises sustainability, accessibility, and minimal environmental impact.

ITALY

• Stones Venue – Associates Architecture
  A public shelter in Brescia’s Parco delle Cave, the project honours the region’s quarrying heritage by incorporating stone blocks donated by local companies. Each monolithic pillar showcases a different variety of stone, creating a symbolic gathering space that is both a place of memory and a civic landmark.

• Infiorate di Pietra – Massimo Berzetta Architetto
  In the historic town of Spello, Umbria, this large-scale redevelopment integrates underground infrastructure with the meticulous restoration of over 25,000 m² of traditional stone pavements. The project balances technical modernisation with heritage conservation, preserving the town’s identity while enhancing its resilience.

PORTUGAL

• TIC Terminal Intermodal de Campanhã – brandão costa arquitectos
  A vast transport hub in Porto, the terminal is organised through a rational sequence of porticoes that simplify its inherent complexity. With functional layers distributed across different levels—from underground vehicle flows to elevated pedestrian galleries—the design merges infrastructural efficiency with urban integration, enhanced by natural ventilation and sustainable construction.

• House of Many Faces – fala atelier
  This conversion of a narrow industrial plot into a home embraces spatial experimentation. Dividing the elongated volume into differentiated zones, the project combines small apartments with a monumental living space. A playful mix of façades and colours gives the house its “many faces,” reflecting its layered and open-ended domesticity.

SLOVAKIA

• First phase of the revitalisation of Námestie Slobody in Bratislava – 2021 + LABAK
  Rather than being demolished, Bratislava’s former communist square has been transformed, reclaiming and reinterpreting its structure. Pools have been reconfigured into accessible cascades, paving recycled into terrazzo, and the space redefined as a welcoming civic plaza—turning a site once symbolic of power into a true “Freedom Square.”

• SJK Pavilion – studeny architects
  Situated in Bratislava’s Janko Kráľ Park, the renovation of a 1980s service building introduces new public amenities. By simplifying the structure and introducing open, accessible spaces for a café and cultural activities, the project revitalises a piece of socialist heritage while reconnecting it with its natural surroundings.

SPAIN

• 25 Social Dwellings in Palma de Mallorca – Harquitectes
  Lying on the site of a derelict school, the housing project adopts an “urban mining” strategy, reusing demolition rubble as structural material. Prefabricated stone-concrete blocks form load-bearing walls, combined with timber slabs, creating a sustainable, expressive architecture that reveals its construction logic on the façade.

• Birgit’s Home – TEd’A arquitectes
  Perched on the cliffs of Mallorca, the house is defined by two massive parallel walls that frame sea views while shielding from neighbouring buildings. Heavy brick walls, exposed in their tectonic texture, support a green roof and shelter domestic life beneath a monumental porch—a dwelling that is evocative of both dolmen and cave.

The finalist projects showcase how contemporary European architecture combines technical rigor, social sensitivity, and transformative capacity.

The Road to Warsaw

The selected projects will battle it out in Warsaw this November, where the winners of the international prizes will be announced, along with the national awards for Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain.

Aside from the prize-giving ceremony, the event has cemented its status as a forum for dialogue and international projection, recognising architecture that goes beyond mere structure to create communities, landscapes, and new ways of inhabiting the present.