Fill this form to have the opportunity to join the New Generations platform: submissions will be reviewed on a daily-basis, and the most innovative practices will have the chance to be part of the media's coverage and participate in our cultural agenda, including events, research projects, workshops, exhibitions and publications.
New Generations is a European platform that investigates the changes in the architectural profession ever since the economic crisis of 2008. We analyse the most innovative emerging practices at the European level, providing a new space for the exchange of knowledge and confrontation, theory, and production.
Since 2013, we have involved more than 300 practices from more than 20 European countries in our cultural agenda, such as festivals, exhibitions, open calls, video-interviews, workshops, and experimental formats. We aim to offer a unique space where emerging architects could meet, exchange ideas, get inspired, and collaborate.
A project by Itinerant Office
Within the cultural agenda of New Generations
Editor in chief Gianpiero Venturini
Editorial team Pablo Ibáñez Ferrera
Copyediting and Proofreading Akshid Rajendran
If you have any questions, need further information, if you'd like to share with us a job offer, or just want to say hello please, don't hesitate to contact us by filling up this form. If you are interested in becoming part of the New Generations network, please fill in the specific survey at the 'join the platform' section.
As a continuation of a collaboration that began in 2005, Fernando Rodriguez and Pablo Oriol established FRPO in 2008 as a natural evolution of their previous professional experiences. From their open plan office space in Madrid, FRPO has been internationally-recognised and is currently undertaking projects in Mexico and the US.
We met in the first days of our studies at the ETSAM (Madrid), in 1995. We studied together with some other close friends from then until we left for Chicago (Pablo) and Berlin (Fernando). Back in Spain, while working for other offices, we started running our small practice, and eventually founded FRPO.
Hard work is not exclusively a hero’s thing; everybody has a private and family life. Our workdays are pretty much divided, as happens to many of us, between the university, the office and the construction site visits. Since we both spend a lot of time outside of the office, meetings -whether online or on site- are crucial to have everyone involved in what is happening and to smoothen the office’s performance. This allows us to be flexible enough to stay at home when needed and to run everything from abroad when travelling (which happens very often).
The office is an open-plan single space with a big table in the middle where everything happens. Everyone is responsible for a series of projects, forming sometimes specific teams when required. We discuss projects personally on a daily basis and all meet together once a week. Further hierarchies do not exist.
We spent our first years practising in the middle of a big crisis. In 2008, we won our first significant competition (Madrid City of Justice), but suddenly, everything shut down. Those were very tough years. We used that time to start working abroad, which in turn allowed us to have today three projects being built in Mexico, and to consolidate, through minor works and competitions, a certain way of understanding our practice. Simultaneously, we strengthened our commitment to the University, both in Madrid ETSAM and abroad, as part of the same practice approach. It is quite satisfying that we have 5 projects that have been built in Mexico and the USA, 5 buildings in process in Spain and 3 projects waiting to start construction works.
Our current next steps are mainly to carry on with our work in progress and make them significant built works within our practice’s approach. We also have a book publication that has been on hold for a few years, which we have been delaying in order to include these new works. We are also in a process to consolidate our work in Mexico and the USA, as part of a long-term strategy. So, quite big things are to come!
Photography courtesy FRPO