Balearic Social Housing Model wins 2026 OBEL Award for innovation in public housing

Social housing in Spain's Balearic Islands has won this year's Obel Award for demonstrating that public administration can be "a genuine engine for change". Carried out by the Balearic Social Housing Institute (IBAVI), the Balearic social housing model involved addressing housing shortages with a more sustainable approach to procuring, designing and building public housing. We The post Balearic Islands' model for social housing wins Obel Award 2026 appeared first on Dezeen.

The Balearic Social Housing Model is crowned the OBEL Award winner 2026 for its pioneering approach, born from within a public administration

Amid growing economic, political, and climatic instability, the 2026 OBEL Award highlights the need for architectural approaches that rethink both existing and emerging infrastructures. The title for this edition is "Systems' Hack," where "systems" are understood as interrelated mechanisms governed by shared rules and "hacking" is framed as a strategic intervention that seeks to alter how these mechanisms operate. Within this framework, the OBEL Foundation has announced the Balearic Social Housing Model as the winner of this year's award, while also announcing a new cycle in 2027 under the same topic. The Balearic Social Housing Model is recognized for "transforming the role of social housing administration in the Balearic Islands between 2019 and 2023," proposing new approaches in response to an acute housing shortage and a critically limited public rental housing stock in Spain.