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Lena Stumpe Wins the Development Award of the Institute of Civic Arts for Urban Design 2026
Lena Stumpe, a MA student on the Architecture and Urban Design degree programme, has been awarded "Das städtische Haus" student's prize for Institute of Civic Arts.
The prize has been organised since 2018 by the German Institute of Civic Arts, under the head of the institute Frank Fietz, in collaboration with wa wettbewerbe aktuell and with the support of the Deutsche Akademie für Städtebau und Landesplanung (DASL). The prize is awarded to student designs that engage with their urban environment in a distinctive way and view the regional context as the basis for architectural design.
The award-winning Master’s thesis was produced as part of the MA programme in Architecture and Urban Design under the supervision of Prof. Dr Silvia Malcovati; the second supervisor was Prof Ludger Brands. The prize is worth 1,000.00 Euro.
The presentation of the Student Encouragement Prize to Lena Stumpe will take place on 25 August 2026 at 6.00 pm in Frankfurt am Main as part of the Stadtbaukonferenz No. 16 „Zur Schönheit und Lebendigkeit der Stadt“.
About the project „Von Typologie zu Stadt – Das Porto-Haus als Generator urbaner Dichte“
Our cities are growing continuously, whilst inner-city land reserves are becoming increasingly limited. This development raises a key question: how can urban densification succeed without losing spatial quality and local identity?
The project takes as its starting point a building type that has evolved over time: the Porto-Haus, also known as the typical Portuguese front building. This typology has shaped Porto’s cityscape for centuries and, at the same time, represents a spatially efficient response to narrow plots and high urban density.
Based on a typological analysis – from historical, morphological and functional perspectives – the project examines the extent to which the Porto house can be further developed as a contemporary tool for generating urban density. Particular attention is paid to its integration into urban block structures, as well as to design principles such as modularity, functional neutrality and spatial adaptability.
On this basis, a catalogue of types was developed, structured as a guide, which, in addition to modular and flexibly combinable floor plan variants, also encompasses façade elements as well as structural and material-related details. These draw on characteristic features of the original Porto houses and translate their proportions, materiality and attention to detail into a contemporary architectural language.
The catalogue is finally applied to a specific urban site in Porto, characterised by numerous vacant plots and a large open space. Using this case study, the project demonstrates how the Porto House can contribute both to inner-city densification and to the careful expansion of the city. The Porto House is not viewed as an urban relic, but rather as a living, adaptable system.
The project aims to contribute to the current debate on sustainable urban transformation and explores the interplay between architectural language, functionality and local identity – key challenges facing many growing cities.
