EUmies Awards Young Talent 2023 Finalists Announced

Friday's announcement of the twelve finalists was a day ahead of the opening of The Laboratory of Education, an exhibition of the EUmies Awards Young Talent 2023 finalists and shortlisted projects at the European Cultural Centre - Palazzo Mora; the small exhibition within ECC's larger Time Space Existence is a collateral event of this year's Venice Architecture Biennial. Visitors to The Laboratory of Education between opening day and its closing on November 26 will encounter stacks of paper on tables in the middle of the gallery, where they can tear off pages with images and information on the finalists. With this Biennale overflowing with QR codes, the pages are a welcome relief, though they come complete with their own codes that allow people to see the projects in more depth. 

This year's awards are the fourth iteration of what started in 2016 as YTAA. (Like other biennial awards, the EUmies Awards Young Talent's shift from odd to even years can be attributed to the pandemic.) Recent graduates from qualifying university master’s degrees programs that include design proposals, and from countries participating in the Creative Europe program, were eligible to submit projects through their universities via an internal selection process. The projects had to be completed between January 1, 2021, and December 31, 2022. Following the submission process, the five-member jury* made a shortlist, announced in April 2023, and then narrowed it down to twelve finalists. They are listed below, with links to the projects on the Young Talent section of our website — no QR codes needed.

A Factory as it Might Be
By: Charline van Maercke
School: CEU San Pablo University, Institute of Technology, Madrid (ES) 

All Watched Over
By: Merve Sahin
School: University of Applied Arts Vienna, Institute of Architecture, Vienna (AT) 

Can We Build Differently?
By: Lenart Piano
School: University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Architecture. Ljubljana (SI) 

Eden Archipelago
By: María de la O Molina Pérez-Tomé
School: Polytechnic University of Madrid, Madrid School of Architecture, Madrid (ES)

From Finlandia Forest to Pikku-Finlandia
By: Elli Wendelin and Jaakko Torvinen
School: Aalto University. School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Espoo (FI) 

Living the Craft Live
By: Patricia Nieto Pujadas
School: CEU San Pablo University, Institute of Technology, Madrid (ES) 

Lost Landscapes
By: Calum Gallogley, Anthony Keniry and James Stack
School: University College Cork & Munster Technological University, School of Engineering and Architecture, Cork (IE)

Peripheral Cartographies
By: Laura Hurley
School: University College Cork & Munster Technological University, School of Engineering and Architecture, Cork (IE)

Practical Utopias: Archipelagic Home
By: Merilin Kaup
School: Estonian Academy of Arts, Faculty of Architecture, Tallinn (EE)

Re-mining Giali: A New Scenario for the Manufactured Landscape
By: Dimitris Mitsimponas
School: University of Thessaly, School of Architecture, Volos (GR)

Riparian Allegories
By: Valerian Andonis Portokalis and Xenia Stoumpou
School: University of Leuven, Faculty of Engineering Science, Leuven (BE)

Valter
By: Dinko Jelecevic
School: Graz University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, Graz (AT)

In addition to the twelve EUmies Awards Young Talent 2023 finalists, the Fundació Mies van der Rohe created a parallel award, the Young Talent Open, which is open to schools from the African continent and members of the Council of Europe which are not part of Creative Europe. Its five finalists, with links to the Young Talent website:

Earth Bound
By: Shaha Raphael
School: Architectural Association School of Architecture, London (UK) 

Igniting the Heart(h)
By: Mia Pulles
School: University of the Witwatersrand, School of Architecture and Planning, Johannesburg (ZA) 

Montage, Collage and Bricolage in Making Tarkovsky’S Zone
By: Katya Krat
School: University of Cape Town; School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics; Cape Town (ZA)

Paradise on the Edge
By: Ruta Perminaite
School: University of Westminster, School of Architecture and Cities, London (UK) 

The Cloud Cooperative
By: Tiia Partanen
School: University of Strathclyde, Department of Architecture, Glasgow (UK)

• N’Goné Fall, independent curator and cultural policies specialist
• Manuel Henriques, Executive Director at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale
• Jennifer Mack, Associate Professor and Docent at KTH Stockholm
• Simone Sfriso, Cofounder of TAMassociati
• Snežana Vesnić, Assistant Professor at the University of Belgrade - Faculty of Architecture