AgwA shortlisted for the 2026 Schelling Architecture Prize

The Brussels-based office AgwA has been shortlisted for the 2026 Schelling Architecture Prize, one of Europe’s major distinctions dedicated to contemporary architecture.

This year’s edition is organised around the theme “Building on the Built”, highlighting practices that transform existing structures while limiting the consumption of resources.

Alongside the Danish office Søren Pihlmann and the Romanian practice Abruptarhitectura, AgwA has been recognised for an approach that considers the existing built environment as the starting point for new spatial, social and cultural possibilities.

Making the existing a resource

Through its projects, AgwA has developed an approach that is attentive to the spatial, constructive and cultural qualities of existing buildings. The office understands architecture as a means of making new spatial structures available, capable of accommodating new uses while revealing the latent potential already present within a site.

This way of working is grounded in a careful reading of existing conditions and an economy of means that favours transformation, reinterpretation and reactivation over systematic demolition.

According to the jury, the practice’s work can be understood as an effort to “make spatial structures available” through interventions that transform existing buildings into new frameworks for collective, cultural and social life.

The winner will be announced during the official award ceremony on 18 November 2026 in Karlsruhe, Germany.