Special mention for the EDDEA, Mecanoo, Arquitectura Agronomía and Bakpak design for the new JRC headquarters in Seville
The proposal by the team led by the Dutch practice MECANOO, with EDDEA, Arquitectura Agronomía and Bakpak Arquitectos, has received a special mention from the jury of the international competition for the new Seville headquarters of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science and knowledge service.
The competition began with an open phase that attracted 66 practices, 15 of which were invited to submit a design concept for the new building, which will occupy the site of the former Pavilion of Discovery on the Isla de la Cartuja. The shortlisted teams presented their proposals together with options for the landscaping of the plot, in line with the requirements set out in the brief.
First prize went to the Danish practice Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), but given the high standard of the entries the jury also awarded special mentions to other projects, including that of MECANOO (with EDDEA on the team), whose design is built around a large interior atrium onto which all the perimeter workspaces open, making it both the lungs of the building and a meeting place.
The JRC is the European Commission’s science service, providing technical information and data for the design and implementation of European policy. It has six sites in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain (in Seville).
The Seville centre, which opened in 1994, currently employs 400 people of 30 nationalities who research the great global challenges in order to underpin European policy decisions with data and evidence in fields such as energy, transport, education and tax reform.
New European Bauhaus
The European Commission’s future headquarters in the Andalusian capital is the first example of the guiding principles of the New European Bauhaus being applied to a project of the European institutions, and it aims to contribute to the decarbonisation goals for the Isla de la Cartuja pursued by the eCity Sevilla project.
The New European Bauhaus is a creative, interdisciplinary initiative launched by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to open up a meeting space for designing future ways of living that are more sustainable, more inclusive and more beautiful. It seeks to bring sustainability and design together to create a new way of inhabiting cities, connecting art, culture, social inclusion, science and technology.