Every year, the Van Hove Prize awarded by the Professional Association of Architects (BUA) honours one or more graduation projects. In the latest edition, not one but four laureates were selected, each of whom advocates for greater social awareness of architecture and a more responsible approach to undeveloped and social space.

With the project ‘Mending Wall’, Ekin Baskentli (KUL – Sint-Lucas Ghent) maps the wall and the border zone that separates the north of the Cypriot capital Nicosia from the south. As a Turkish citizen, he only had access to the northern part, where the border area is characterised by residual space, rear facades and unfinished buildings. In a series of drawings, he proposes new uses for these places, designing the whole as a structural and connecting figure between the two parts of the city, as an above-ground counterpart to the ironically still existing common underground sewerage system.