Schelling Student Award 2025 awarded

On 19 November 2025, the Schelling Student Prize was awarded for the sixth time at KIT, Faculty of Architecture. Since 2015, this prize has been awarded every two years to the best final theses. Ten master’s theses were nominated this year. Two main prizes and two honourable mentions were awarded.
The jury included the winners of the 2024 Schelling Prize, LOLA Landscape Architects, the winner of the 2023 Schelling Student Prize, Silvi Kociu, and five members of the Schelling Foundation: Prof. Dr. Kathrin Golda-Pongratz, Kaye Geipel, Prof. Dr. Georg Vrachliotis, Prof. Tobias Wallisser and Prof. Dr. Ludger Hünnekens.
The main prize, worth 2,000 euros, was devided between Johann Kuhn and Emilia Sendelbach. Their designs impressed the jury equally.
Johann Kuhn’s master’s thesis, ‘Poetic Cultural Landscapes: A Walk Through the System of Water Meadows,’ deals with the little-known cultural landscape of water meadows, where large agricultural areas are periodically flooded, creating the basis for the cultivation of specific crops.
Emilia Seidelbach’s master’s thesis ‘The Canal Keepers: Hybrid Filters for the Revitalisation of the Landwehr Canal’ is a large-scale urban development project – and requires only minimal intervention.

 

In addition, two honourable mentions, each worth 500 euros, were awarded.

One went to Michael Hosch for his master’s thesis ‘In/Visible Infrastructure’, in which he addresses the discussion of how sustainable energy supply infrastructures are reshaping our natural and built environment.
Another award went to Nina Rau for her master’s thesis ‘Safe Space / A place for women and their children to seek protection from domestic violence in the west of Karlsruhe’.

 

Following projects were also nominated:

 

Franziska Alt
Kultsilo / From grain silo to cultural and creative centre at Saarbrücken’s Osthafen

 

Toni Bistritz
Origin and future – Transformation of a church in Karlsruhe-Neureut

 

Fabienne Savic
In the glass house with stones

 

Sascha Seidt
Hortus Inclusus – The botanical garden as an urban mediator

 

Paula Mercedes Seifert
Along the delta – Architecture in between

 

Guillermo Vera
The shape of water – around it, under it, over it

 

We would like to congratulate everyone!