Two competitions

The first big competition that somehow enabled us to start the practice was the first prize for the restoration of Alejandro de la Sota’s former Clesa factory in Madrid. A couple of years afterwards, the second prize at the International Competition for the New Cyprus Museum in Nicosia meant the consolidation of the practice. In fact, it was so relevant that we have been working on a limited edition book dedicated to this project, which will be released next month and compiles purely unreleased drawings that we have carefully kept until we found the adequate format to reveal them.

A matter of language

My interest in architecture has relied not so much on the specific refinement of an architectural form, but instead in the construction of an architectural language; a language that might be able to test how our contemporary public realm is constructed, not just through material means, but also through the enactment and engagement of different actors, as well as through the performance of events and scenographies in such society that is in a constant transformation. From my professional practice the reflection on this problematic within the city, necessarily needs to go through a process of definition of which tools are used to construct the Public Form.

Architect 24/7

I have already lost faith in any possible separation between professional and private life. I believe that the incapability of reconciliation amid both relies on a particular approach to architecture, or even to a particular understanding of the role of the architect. Within contemporary societies, we operate in a missing paradigm, redefining our position from the trace of objects to the trace of associations. Redefining our role as a type of connection amid things that are not necessarily architectural by themselves.

A traveling office

Domesticity has ruled my studio in both a conceptual and contextual way. For a long while, my practice has been a “Nomadic Office” that was carried almost as a suitcase from one apartment to another, from one flat to another, sharing spaces and life with others, in order to finally settle down at the current location. Which still keeps that domestic ethos somehow. Such an ephemeral and hybrid ethos has informed my approach to professional practice as well. This is something that has been developed through projects such as DOM, a response to an international competition for standard social housing for the future of Russia in which we mixed Domesticity and Urbanity within the residential block.

Defining architecture's agenda

From the very early moments my professional interests have tried to fill in the gap between expectations and reality. Always focusing on contemporary situations that are deeply rooted in reality but which trigger conditions of opportunity for speculation. The pop-up urbanisms of music events, the cynical architectures of post-politics, the sociological implications of media technologies’ dangers, the metropolitan implications of new tech industries… These are just some of the concerns that inform my professional practice, wandering in a somewhat tangential position to normative architectural discourse, focusing on the interrelations between technology, contemporary culture production and the construction of societies.

A critical attitude

We try to behave as a platform for researching and discussing innovative architectures for the city. As a critical Thought Think Tank that aims more to raise questions than to give specific answers… The ethos of my practice relies on a personal interest in the analysis of existing metropolitan situations, which generate city and construct society; but which have not yet been included within the professional practice of urbanism; neither are they represented according to architecture tools, but which construct public realm with more success than some disciplinary practices.