NEB Lab: Nordic Carbon Neutral Bauhaus

Project Summary 

The Nordic Carbon Neutral Bauhaus (NCNB) was a collaborative Nordic initiative exploring how the New European Bauhaus (NEB)  could be interpreted and implemented in a Nordic context. 

Launched at the NEB Festival in 2022, the NCNB was one of the very first community-led NEB Labs, alongside initiatives such as "NEB Goes South" and "New European Bauhaus of the Mountains." The project was coordinated by Finland's Ministry of the Environment, co-chaired by Sweden's Boverket, and supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers. It brought together five Nordic countries — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden — with Estonia joining in November 2022. 

At its heart, NCNB set out to demonstrate how architecture, design, and art can advance carbon neutrality while upholding the NEB's broader values of inclusion, affordability, and aesthetic quality. The project contributed directly to the Nordic Vision 2030, which commits the Nordic region to becoming the most sustainable and integrated area in the world, and aligned with related programmes including the Nordic Networks for Circular Construction (2022–2024) and the Nordic Sustainable Construction programme (2021–2024). 

The initiative ran from the co-design phase in spring 2021 through to its closing events in late 2024, engaging policymakers, construction professionals, architects, researchers, cultural practitioners, students, and citizens across the Nordic and Baltic regions. 

Project Milestones 

Co-design Phase (Spring 2021)  
The project began with a series of co-design workshops to identify the most important Nordic dimensions of the NEB. Organised primarily online due to COVID-19 restrictions, the workshops attracted over 1,600 participants from more than 20 countries by May 2021. The outcomes — spanning 22 thematic areas — confirmed carbon neutrality and sustainable construction as the defining Nordic priorities, alongside inclusion and aesthetics. 

Launch: Frontiers of Circular Architecture (June 2022)  
The NCNB was officially launched at the first New European Bauhaus Festival in Brussels as part of a seminar on Nordic perspectives on circular architecture hosted by Nordic Sustainable Construction. The event set out the project's framework and ambitions within the NEB Lab structure. 

New European Bauhaus Goes into the Woods (November 2022)  
A landmark high-level event hosted in Espoo, Finland, at Haltia — the Finnish Nature Centre — in collaboration with the European Commission and the governments of Sweden and Estonia. The event drew European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, and Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch. Discussions centred on sustainable forestry, bio-based construction materials, and the role of forests in achieving carbon neutrality. President von der Leyen announced the launch of the New European Bauhaus Academy at this event, committing to training in green and digital construction across Europe. 

Breaking Barriers — Cross-sectoral Cooperation for Climate, Construction and Culture (December 2022) The first NCNB policy debate, held at Nordens Hus in Copenhagen, examined the cultural dimensions of sustainable construction. Experts from Chalmers University, Aalto University, and Design and Architecture Norway explored how Nordic cultural policy and sustainable building guidelines could be better aligned. 

Sustainable Building Saga podcast (launched October 2023, ongoing)  
A podcast series hosted by Professor Matti Kuittinen of Aalto University, exploring trends in sustainable building and living through interviews with designers, researchers, and policymakers. Season one launched in October 2023; season two followed in November 2024 with eight new episodes. The podcast takes its name from the Nordic storytelling tradition and aims to inspire optimism and practical action within the construction industry. 

Nordic Democracy Festival Tour (Summer–Autumn 2023)  
NCNB participated in five Nordic democracy festivals across Sweden (Almedalsveckan), Norway (Arendalsuka), Denmark (Kulturmødet), Finland, and Iceland (Fundur Folksins). Each event convened local panels to explore what a climate-neutral Nordic way of life might look like, with discussions spanning architecture, biodiversity, legislation, arts, and community development. 

NEB Design Challenge (Spring–May 2024)  
A two-phase student competition organised by the Research Institute of Sweden (RISE) in collaboration with Architects Sweden. Nearly 100 students from Nordic universities submitted 29 proposals for the adaptive reuse of four real sites: Kvarteret Hammaren in Umeå (Sweden), Verksgata 54 in Stavanger (Norway), a former military area in Kuopio (Finland), and Gadehavegaard in Høje-Taastrup (Denmark). Twelve proposals advanced to a second phase; winners were announced at Umeå School of Architecture on 30 May 2024. 

Aligning Nordic Architectural Policies with the NEB / Closing Event (November 2024)  
A two-day closing event at Form/Design Center in Malmö, Sweden (20–21 November 2024), brought together policymakers, architects, and sustainability experts from across the Nordic and Baltic regions. Day one featured a policy debate comparing national architectural policies — including Finland's Towards a Sustainable Architecture, Sweden's Gestaltad livsmiljö, and Iceland's Design and Architecture Policy until 2030 — with the NEB framework. Day two reflected on the project's journey and future steps. 

Beyond Zero Exhibition (November 2024 – ongoing tour)  
An exhibition curated by Finnish architects Iines Karkulahti, Charlotte Nyholm, Anssi Lauttia, and Meri Wiikinkoski (Noon Architects & Vapaa Collective), opened at Form/Design Center, Malmö, in November 2024 and running until January 2025 before touring other Nordic countries through 2025–2026. The exhibition presents seventeen projects from Nordic countries and Estonia through a six-point manifesto for sustainable architectural practice. It is accompanied by a downloadable publication, Beyond Zero — Nordic Architecture on the Road Towards Renewed Practices. 

Project Results and Achievements 

NEB Design Challenge winning proposals: The competition produced four winning proposals demonstrating the breadth of approaches to adaptive reuse: Intertwining Narratives (Lund University) for Umeå, blending local Västerbotten craftsmanship with contemporary community life; Resilience of Togetherness (Aalto University / Tampere University) for Kuopio, addressing loneliness through community housing in a preserved military heritage site; Fjordnest – Bringing Nature to the City (Chalmers Institute of Technology) for Stavanger, transforming an aging warehouse into a sustainable mixed-use destination; and Again and Again (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) for Gadehavegaard, Denmark, which repurposed demolition materials throughout a new campus and community centre. Together, these proposals serve as replicable models for the broader construction industry and demonstrate that architecture can play a central role in strengthening communities and social resilience. 

Beyond Zero Exhibition: Widely recognised as one of the project's flagship achievements, the exhibition advances a compelling and accessible argument for systemic change in building culture, connecting environmental, social, and cultural dimensions in the spirit of the NEB. Showcase project can be explored here. 

Policy Influence: The NCNB built directly on Nordic Declaration on Low Carbon Construction and Circular Principles in the Construction Sector — a ministerial commitment by the Nordic countries to pursue global leadership in low-carbon construction solutions — and helped translate its ambitions into cross-sectoral practice. The project further mapped significant convergence between Nordic national architectural policies and the NEB framework, identifying shared commitments to ecological, social, and cultural sustainability. It made the case for more structured Nordic architectural policy collaboration and for embedding NEB values into national policy instruments going forward. 

Broad Stakeholder Engagement Across its lifetime, the project engaged over 1,600 participants in the co-design phase alone, and reached policymakers, professionals, students, and citizens through festivals, seminars, competitions, a podcast, and an internationally toured exhibition. 

NEBA North Hub The project directly contributed to the establishment of the NEBA North Hub — one of 4 hubs launched in 2024 as part of the NEBA Alliance project. The hub, led by RISE, Aalto University, and the Estonian Academy of Arts, is delivering lifelong learning programmes in sustainable building, with a focus on timber construction and the social dimensions of circular construction. 

Recommendations The project concluded with three recommendations for the Nordic region and the broader NEB community: 

1. Inventing Nordic design narratives for our time. The NCNB reaffirmed the historic role of Nordic architecture and design in shaping welfare society, and called for an updated 21st-century Nordic design tradition that integrates climate responsibility, inclusive and participatory urban planning, digital innovation, and resilience. This means moving beyond aesthetics alone to pursue deeper systemic change — as also argued in the Nordic Network for Circular Construction report An Invitation to Be Exceptional.
2. Walking the talk of the Nordic model. Nordic countries must confront the gap between their reputation as sustainability leaders and the reality of above-average energy and resource consumption. The priority should shift from new construction to retrofitting, renewal, and regeneration of the existing building stock. The project also called for greater engagement with indigenous knowledge, particularly the Sámi architectural tradition, as a source of genuinely regenerative design.
3. Incorporating the NEB approach into Nordic sustainable construction and architectural policies. Achieving carbon neutrality requires more than reducing CO₂ emissions; it demands a fundamental redesign of the built environment to be more inclusive, regenerative, and culturally aware. National architectural policies are identified as key instruments for advancing NEB values, and the NEBA North Hub as a practical vehicle for testing and disseminating NCNB ideas at scale. 

For comprehensive insights into the project’s results and achievements, refer to the full project report. 

Project Team and Coordinators 

Lead Coordinator Ministry of the Environment, Finland — represented by Harri Hakaste (Senior Architect, Chair of the NCNB Steering Group) after Matti Kuittinen who initiated the NEB Lab left the ministry. 

Co-chair Boverket — Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning (Sweden) — represented by Helena Bjarnegård and Suzanne Pluntke 

Project Partners 

• Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland
• Aalto University, Finland
• Ministry of Infrastructure, Iceland
• Danish Authority of Social Services and Housing, Denmark
• Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Norway
• Ministry of Climate, Estonia (joined in 2022) 

Co-design Phase Partners 

The co-design phase (2021) involved a broader group of organisations alongside the core project partners: 

• Council for Sustainable Cities, Sweden
• Innovation Agency Vinnova, Sweden
• Doga — Design and Architecture Norway
• DDC — Danish Design Centre, Denmark
• Iceland Design and Architecture, Iceland
• Nordic Historic Wooden Towns' Network
• Archinfo — The Information Centre for Finnish Architecture, Finland 

Key Contributing Organisations 

• Research Institute of Sweden (RISE) — lead organiser of the NEB Design Challenge
• Nordic Council of Ministers — administrative support and co-funding
• Form/Design Center, Malmö — host of the closing event and Beyond Zero exhibition
• SUSTAINORDIC / Form/Design Center — NEB partner and festival co-organiser
• Vapaa Collective / Noon Architects — Beyond Zero exhibition curators 

Podcast 

Hosted by Professor Matti Kuittinen, Aalto University (Department of Architecture) and former Senior Specialist, Ministry of the Environment, Finland. 

Project report 

Project report was authored by Aleksi Lohtaja, Archinfo — The Information Centre for Finnish Architecture, published by the Nordic Council of Ministers (Nord 2025:018, April 2025). 

Contacts 

Harri [dot] Hakastegov [dot] fi (Harri Hakaste) Ministry of Environment of Finland