The Science Award for Architecture from the Bundessektion Architekt*innen and the
Research Award for Architecture from the FBundeskammer der Ziviltechniker*innen 2025 go to two graduates of the Institute
of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts.
Naomi Neururer
has been awarded the 2025 Research Prize for Architecture by the Austrian Chamber of Civil Engineers for her thesis
entitled ‘PLASTI.CARE - Transforming Short-lived Plastic into Durable Architecture for a Selfcare Centre’. Supervised by Greg
Lynn, Neururer successfully completed her studies at the I oA of the University of Applied Arts Vienna in June 2024 with this
thesis.
Nikola Beim has been awarded the 2025 Science Prize for Architecture by the Austrian Federal
Section of Architects for her dissertation ‘Architecture of Memory: Monuments Beyond the Digital.’ Nikola Beim completed her
doctoral studies at the I oA of the University of Applied Arts, supervised by Mario Carpo, in July 2024.
The dissertation
maps the history, development, and transformation of memory and monuments in Western society from Modernism to the present,
to digital and beyond digital, reflecting upon Alois Riegl’s Modern Cult of Monuments, written in 1903. It examines the digital
documentation tools enabling the transition of Riegl’s preservation theory characteristic of the turn of the twentieth-century
Vienna into the digital realm while redefining the monument’s values in the twenty-first century. Furthermore, the dissertation
proposes a new representational model of monuments within the digital environment called ‘digital palimpsest,’ serving as
a digital spatial framework offering a multiversal image of historical monuments. Thus, the dissertation has a transdisciplinary
character, bridging architectural history, preservation, design, and technology.
Both prizes will be awarded on
16 October at the Architekturzentrum Wien.
