The ‘Life Reusing Posidonia’ project has won the 15th edition of the LIFE 2021 awards presented by the European Union in the Environment category. It involves the construction and management of 14 public housing units (VPO) for rent developed by the Balearic Social Housing Institute (IBAVI) in the town of Sant Ferran, Formentera.
The awards, defined by the organisation itself as the green oscars, recognise the 15 “most innovative, inspiring and effective” LIFE projects completed in 2020 across three categories: climate action, nature protection and environment. The IBAVI development won in the final category, as the regional government explains in a press release on its website (caib.es).
The Government reports that in his speech of thanks, IBAVI’s architect, Carles Oliver, stressed how important it was that the organisation’s current manager, Cris Ballester, had “bought into the story”, meaning that Life Reusing Posidonia “is no longer just a prototype, but now we are taking this housing project to all the islands”.
As a result, the sustainable architecture model begun in the Formentera development is now being applied to IBAVI’s the new housing developments.
The LIFE programme is the EU’s funding instrument for the protection and conservation of the environment, through which the Sant Ferran homes were subsidised.
An expert jury selected the winners, announced on Wednesday, from a shortlist of 15 nominated projects, coinciding with the EU’s Green Week, the most important environmental event in Europe.
Life Reusing Posidonia “aims to demonstrate the viability of decreasing resource consumption and increasing comfort through the use of low environmental impact construction systems that reduce the side effects of current production models”, stated the Government. In addition to designing a near-zero consumption building, priority was given to the use of the most local, ecological materials as possible.
The construction of the 14 social dwellings was completed in 2017, although the results of the project were delivered to the European Commission in 2020.