The New European Bauhaus is the creative and interdisciplinary European movement dedicated to the dissemination of practices and projects that improve the places where we spend our lives, and that contribute to making cities and territories increasingly sustainable and inclusive.

NEB promotes local solutions that respond to global challenges, supporting innovative ways and practices of living in connection with the natural and artificial environment; it is based on three key principles:

• Sustainability: Agenda2030 goals, circularity, reduction of pollution, protection of biodiversity;
• Aesthetics: balance between functionality and quality of experience, between approach and ethics;
• Inclusion: valuing diversity, equality, accessibility and coexistence.

NEB is looking for projects and proposals, also already implemented, that support these values. In order to facilitate the research, it launches annual calls for prize for solutions that are distinguished by excellence and creativity.

The call for the Bauhaus Prizes 2022 closed on 7th March.

The Social Computing Group of the Computer Science Department of the University of Turin has submitted two digital platforms that help to improve daily urban life, focusing on better living together, promoting cooperation from below and empowering citizens with a new way of creating value:

• FirstLife - civic social network
• CommonsHood - wallet app based on blockchain technology

In these years of experimentation and practices together with citizens in different urban and territorial contexts, the two civic technologies have proved exemplary in involving active citizenship, facilitating and supporting the co-design, co-production and co-management of urban services, and in ensuring financial inclusion. FirstLife and CommonsHood are the result of a co-design process involving representatives of different local stakeholder groups: associations, schools, local authorities, citizens and local businesses; due to this approach and their functionalities, they play an active role in empowering local actors, trigger positive social changes, embed new systems of relationships and social values and demonstrate that sharing goods, services and visions is the first step towards a sustainable future. In sum, they are tools in line with the principles of the New European Bauhaus, but not only: they could support the movement itself and serve other projects, ideas and proposals.

More than 1,100 participants took part in the competition, demonstrating that Europe is full of sustainable, beautiful and inclusive projects. The winning projects will be announced during the New European Bauhaus Festival in mid-June in Brussels.

Fingers crossed! 🤞