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How can we rethink, reinterpret and repurpose existing resources? Resources that are essentially ready made. Ready Made is the theme of the 2025 Obel Award, an international architecture prize awarded annually by the Copenhagen-based Henrik Frode Obel Foundation.
The contest, now in its seventh edition, aims to honour outstanding architectural contributions to social and ecological development globally, offering seminal approaches to urgent problems, a commitment towards the common good.
Every year, the Obel Award Jury sets an annual focus for the award, aiming to foster dialogue and build knowledge on emerging issues that recognise the importance, fragility, and challenges of our societies and the built environment. In 2024, the theme Architectures with explored the distinction between participation and co-creation, focusing on collaboration with other disciplines and fields involved in the design process.
This year, Ready Made represents a call to go beyond the current norms by looking to new standards for bio-based materials and reuse resource cultures celebrated for their availability, regrowth, naturally occurring presence and carbon efficiency.
The Jury of the Obel Award 2025 comprises Chair Nathalie de Vries (Founding Partner of MVRDV, Rotterdam), Xu Tiantian (Founding Principal of DnA, Beijing), Aric Chen (General and Artistic Director of the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam), Sumayya Vally (Founder and Principal of Counterspace, Johannesburg), and the new entry Anne Marie Galmstrup (Founder of Galmstrup Architects, London).
A special feature of the Obel Award is that the jury itself decides the annual focus of the competition. How is the focus chosen?
N.d.V.: The theme is not decided in a vacuum, it evolves from the discussions we have as a jury, from what we see happening in architecture, and from the insights brought in by the scouts. Certain themes keep emerging, and sometimes themes that did not quite fit one year gain new relevance the next. It is a way of keeping up with the pace of change, of making sure we are addressing the most pressing issues in architecture. It is also about recognizing trends and deciding which ones deserve the spotlight.
Could you please describe the process through which the Jury collectively defined this year’s focus, Ready Made?
N.d.V.: This year, we kept coming back to the idea of working with what is already there. It is something that is becoming more and more dominant in architecture—rethinking materials, conditions, buildings, even construction processes. But Ready Made is not just about reuse; it is about reinterpreting what is already there, finding new values in it, and expanding possibilities. It challenges architects to see existing resources not as limitations, but as opportunities to create something unexpected, something that resonates culturally and aesthetically.
Another peculiarity of the Obel Award is that there are no separate categories for projects. What are the reasons behind this choice?
J.E.: We want to leave room for surprises and the unexpected—projects that perhaps are the odd ones out or regarded as unconventional choices. While the Obel Award is an architecture award, we do not have a defined set of eligibility criteria or strict definitions of how a project must relate to architecture per se. Take Seratech, the 2022 recipients, for example. I do not think they ever imagined winning an architecture award. As material scientists focused on decarbonising around 4,000 cement factories worldwide, their work transcends traditional boundaries. Breaking down industry silos has been a key priority for the Obel Award jury. For this reason, categorising projects or introducing sub-categories would not be in line with our way of thinking.
What are your expectations for the proposals from candidates in this year’s edition?
N.d.V.: I hope to see projects that do not just reuse things in a straightforward way, but that really rethink how we engage with existing resources. The most interesting proposals will be the ones that transform something familiar into something completely new—projects that show us a different way of looking at materials, spaces, or structures. Architecture isn not just about sustainability in a technical sense; it is also about storytelling, about meaning. I would love to see projects that take this idea and push it in ways we have not seen before.
J.E.: We hope to be surprised—or even challenged—by how the theme is interpreted and translated into a project. The jury describes Ready Made as “ready to be utilised and/or already made" in their statement, but we welcome submissions that push, redefine, or expand this understanding. It would be exciting to see projects that challenge our perceptions and broaden the scope of what Ready Made can mean.
