Ironclad jury BNA Best Building of the Year 2022 announced

The 17th edition of BNA Best Building of the Year - the architecture award of the Netherlands - has started. Barbara Baarsma, professor of Applied Economics at the University of Amsterdam is taking on the role of jury president. This year's election will again be led by a six-member jury, consisting of Gert Kwekkeboom (Civic Architects), Annemarie van Doorn (director Dutch Green Building Council), Mohamed Baba (Haag Wonen), Maartje Luisman (SVP Architecture and Urbanism) and Ton Venhoeven (VenhoevenCS). Entries can be submitted until March 7, noon.

BNA Best Building of the Year is the proof that architectural firms add value to society, want to make it better or want to make it function. On the basis of a preliminary selection and jury tour through the Netherlands, nominations are chosen that compete for the main prize. The nominees will be announced on March 25 by our media partner De Volkskrant and the public can vote for their favorite. On May 12, the winners will be announced during a festive ceremony at Theater Zuidplein in Rotterdam. 

Jurors

Gert Kwekkeboom is an architect and one of the four founders of Amsterdam-based Civic Architects, founded in 2015. He is also active in the BNA membership council and in 2018 was winner of the Next Step Award with Civic, part of the Next Step Program organized by the BNA and developer Synchroon. Gert is particularly curious about the Identity & Icon Value category. "Whereas a few decades ago this might have been about bigger buildings and spectacular feats of engineering, you would expect architecture to seek a different 'iconic' language to convey what is important in our time. After all, we as a global population see ourselves challenged on various social, ecological and technological themes," said Gert Kwekkeboom.

Annemarie van Doorn has been director of Dutch Green Building Council (DGBC), the national civil society organization dedicated to rapidly making the built environment future-proof, since 2014. Annemarie would advise submitting a building with a particular feature or application that you might feel but not immediately notice. "It doesn't necessarily have to be iconic. What's nicer is that it sets an example for others, and has a certain approachability, simplicity." 

Mohamed Baba has been chairman of the board of housing corporation Haag Wonen since 2020. In addition, Mohamed is Alliance Attractor Housing and Living Environment for The Hague South-West and within the Executive Board of The Renewed City responsible for the Housing Market portfolio. Since 2018, he has also been chairman of the association Sociale Verhuurders Haaglanden (SVH), in which 15 corporations in the region work together. Not for nothing, then, does he think it is important that the architect, in addition to how it looks and how it fits into the environment, attaches just as much importance to sustainable building and the social contribution to the environment.

Maartje Luisman has been a partner at SVP Architecture and Urban Design since 2008. In addition, she is a board member of the Register of Architects and has served as a BNA board member for many years. Maartje is interested in what problems submitters encountered, how they tackled them and how they managed to hold on to their ambitions from start to finish. 

Ton Venhoeven is founder of architecture firm VenhoevenCS architecture+urbanism. In addition to his work as an architect and urban planner, Ton advises on Smart MicroCity, Healthy City and the relationship between mobility and the city. Venhoeven is especially curious about how the categories will be interpreted and filled in. "As a society, we face a large number of challenges and in each of these categories, in my opinion, the most important thing is how a project contributes to the resulting change tasks."

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