The international call opened with the launch of the challenge “Mineral. Architectures of urban mining”, an innovation grant programme with total funding of €336,000, promoted by the BIT Habitat Foundation as Barcelona City Council’s urban innovation agency, which is aimed at architecture studios, engineering firms, universities, research and innovation centres, foundations and entities from the sector.

The main aim is to find solutions or innovative processes that give a second life to construction and demolition waste (CDW) from urban redevelopment projects, generating a new architectural system or construction method that defines how these materials can be used in public space, or how they can be applied in building works. In this way, the aim is to contribute to material circularity and the decarbonisation of cities, as public works have an impact on CO2 emissions, the consumption of water resources, reducing waste generation, the exploitation of natural resources (the extraction of granite, stone and other resources) and landscape conservation.

The participating teams must ensure that their proposal is not already available on the market, that it promotes circularity and decarbonisation, and guarantees the generation of a new construction system with a clear application and architectural value. Also, the pilots must be viable, that is, testable in real-world environments, scalable and replicable.

In March, six teams will be short-listed, and will be awarded €6,000 to deploy their solution. Following this, two winning teams will be selected which will each receive a grant worth 80% of the total budget for their project, up to a total of €150,000 per team, so they can execute their innovative solution.

The challenge was devised in the context of the International Union of Architects Congress (Congress IUA) which is set to take place in Barcelona in summer 2026, coinciding with Barcelona’s designation as World Capital of Architecture 2026. This event, promoted by UNESCO and the International Union of Architects, will turn the city into a global showcase for the transformative capacity of architecture, with a 10-month programme that will include exhibitions, guided walks, workshops, open days, tours, talks and urban interventions in the city’s ten districts.

The results of the research and innovation process will be disseminated at the Congress in the form of talks and exhibition materials. At the same time, to test the solutions, pilot trials will be conducted as part of different actions managed by BIMSA in the city in 2026. The prototypes will be monitored for one year to assess their effectiveness in achieving the expected outcomes.

The scalability and replicability of the solutions is the biggest challenge for the innovations. To address this, Barcelona Provincial Council and the BIT Habitat Foundation have signed a new collaboration agreement. In this case, Barcelona Provincial Council will provide €100,000 to finance the challenge. For its part, the BIT Habitat Foundation will share the knowledge and methodology associated with the innovation process so it can be applied in other towns and cities.