The Best Building of the Year in Latvia is a Wooden Kindergarten 0 32

The authors of the project are the architectural bureau "MADE arhitekti", which has repeatedly been a Grand Prix laureate, reports the Latvian Union of Architects.

The winner, a kindergarten in Salaspils, is a two-story public wooden building where the visible structures and solutions are the authors' response to the main challenges of the modern construction industry — how to build economically, environmentally friendly, and safely.

Three projects received jury awards:

• reconstruction of production buildings and the territory of SIA "Light Guide Optics International" ("Lightguide") (architect Antra Saknite, "Mindaro Arch"),
• residential ensemble "Augustīnes dārzs" (architectural group "Sampling"),
• and a project that began as a thesis by RISEBA architecture and design faculty student Marta Ventere — "Spatiality of the Border — Renovation of the Eastern Border Zone of Latvia."

The Latvian company "Lightguide" in Līvāni is a manufacturer of medical products made from optical fibers. Architect Antra Saknite notes that the main task of the project is to create a vibrant, functional, and aesthetically expressive "standard" for the working premises and territory of the enterprise.

The "Augustīnes dārzs" project, implemented by the architectural group "Sampling", represents a complex of residential buildings in Grīziņkalns, including a Jugendstil building and reconstructed former production buildings in the yard. The facades of the houses on the street were restored, and the buildings in the yard were adapted for residential use, creating a modern urban garden.

The project "Spatiality of the Border — Renovation of the Eastern Border Zone of Latvia" is the work of young architect Marta Ventere. It is a process calling for a new discovery of the Latvian periphery — a more than 450-kilometer border space along the eastern border of the country.