Gaudi La Coma Artists’ Residences Jury Panel

Buildner is pleased to announce the jury panel for its Gaudi La Coma Artists Residences Competition!

Ben van Berkel, UNStudio
Bárbara Bardin, Canobardin
Julio Cano, Canobardin
Julien De Smedt, JDS Architects
Arturo Mc Clean, Miralles Tagliabue EMBT
Inés Olavarrieta, selgascano
Anna Maria Orrù, Konstfack – University of Arts, Crafts and Design, Nordic Biomimicry
Jordi Riembau Ribot, Nordest architecture SLP
Miguel Rusca Mestre, Nordest architecture SLP 
Patricia Grande, Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos

Ben van Berkel is Founder and Principle of UNStudio. He holds the Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor's Chair at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In 2018 he founded UNSense, an Arch Tech company based in Amsterdam that designs and integrates human-centric tech solutions for the built environment.

Bárbara Bardin is co-Founder of Madrid-based studio Canobardin. She has collaborated with several studios such as Selgascano, Irisarri Piñera, Ezquiaga, and Iñaki Carnicero. With Selgascano she was involved in projects such as the TN Building in Stockholm, the Serpentine Pavilion, Secondhome offices, and the Martell pavilion. Canobardin has specialized on singular designs based on strong concepts that achieve both functionality and design in which the site and the environment are always a breaking point of the project.

Julio Cano is co-Founder of Madrid-based studio Canobardin. He was always interested in traditional architecture and its relation to the local climate and materials as a way towards sustainability. From 2013-2017, he worked with Selgascano, where he was involved in important projects such as Plasencia auditorium and Secondhome offices in Lisbon and London.

Julien De Smedt is the founder and director of JDS Architects based in Copenhagen and Brussels. An architect and designer whose work  is internationally spread, Julien’s commitment to the exploration of  new architectural models and programs has helped re-energize the  contemporary architecture discussion. Seminal projects include the VM Housing Complex, the Mountain  Dwellings, Lille’s Maison Stéphane Hessel, the Iceberg, Kalvebod Waves  and the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. Born in Brussels to French art enthusiast Jacques Léobold and Belgian  artist Claude De Smedt, Julien attended schools in Brussels, Paris, and  Los Angeles before receiving his diploma from the Bartlett School of  Architecture in London. Prior to founding JDS Architects, Julien worked with Rem Koolhaas in  Rotterdam, and co-founded the architecture firm PLOT with Bjarke Ingels  in Copenhagen. In 2013 he co-founded with William Ravn the agenda driven design label Makers With Agendas, addressing matters of society to  create meaningful products. Julien has been a guest lecturer in numerous venues worldwide and  a visiting professor at Copenhagen’s Art Academy, Rice University in  Houston, Texas, the University of Kentucky, MIT in Cambridge, USA, and  at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. His work is published  and exhibited internationally. He published the monograph PIXL to XL and released 2 influential books:  Agenda, Can We Sustain our Ability to Crisis? and Built Unbuilt. Among other awards and recognition, Julien received the Henning  Larsen Prize in 2003 and the Eckersberg medal in 2005, the Maaskant  Award in 2009 and the Prix Dejean in 2014 from the French Academy of  Architecture. In 2004 the Stavanger Concert Hall received the Golden Lion as the  World’s Best Concert Hall at the Venice Biennale, the Maritime youth  House won the AR+D award in London and was nominated for the Mies  van der Rohe award. The Mountain received the World Architecture  Festival Award and MIPIM Award in 2009, while the Iceberg received the latter in 2013 along with the Architizer A+ Award and the Best Building Award in 2015 from Archdaily. More recently Maison Stéphane Hessel was among  the best Hotels at the 2016 MIPIM Awards and the Hangzhou Gateway  was a 2017 Architizer A+ finalist. In 2019 The Holmenkollen Ski Jump  received the Houen Foundation Award, Norway’s most important award for architecture.

Arturo Mc Clean is Communications Manager and Architect at Barcelona-based Miralles Tagliabue EMBT. Born in Panama City in 1982, Arturo studied architecture at the Universidad Santa Maria La Antigua in Panama, at the Universities of Granada and Salamanca in Spain. He has been involved in several interior and graphic design and independent publishing projects. At Miralles Tagliabue EMBT he is a member of the publications and communications team, and is also involved in the running of the Enric Miralles Foundation. EMBT has completed such projects as Kálida Sant Pau Centre in Barcelona - a space of emotional, social and practical support for cancer patients, and part of the Maggie’s Centre Network.

Inés Olavarrieta is an architect and designer at Madrid-based selgascano. She graduated with a Master’s Degree in Architecture from the ETSAM, Technical University of Madrid in 2014, with honors. Her final thesis project, a finalist of Archiprix 2015, was widely published. In 2013, she worked at the exhibition Spain Mon Amour in the Biennale di Architectura in Venice. Inés has worked in London, Paris, Lisbon and Madrid. She was a collaborator at FRPO’s studio between 2011 and 2014. Since 2014, she has been a team member at selgascano in Madrid where she works on projects ranging in scale from large developments to interiors, including the Serpentine Pavilion (2015), Second Home Offices in Hollywood (2019) and the Design District Market (2020). Her work has focused mainly on reactivating spaces that are considered to be residual or forgotten. She understands architecture and design as a halfway between beauty and functionality, minimalism and chaos.

Anna Maria Orrù, PhD- Arch ARB SAR/MSA, works in biomimicry, artistic/design research and in curating performative ‘hands-on’ research, providing alternative approaches to ecological design and sustainability. She has worked as an ecological architect since 1999 in London, Los Angeles and Stockholm with studios that included Grimshaw, Exploration Architecture, Shigeru Ban and ATAP. She left traditional architecture in 2010 to enter into academia and transdisciplinary practice. Now based in Sweden and Italy, Orrù holds a PhD from Chalmers University. She is an Affiliated Senior Lecturer at Konstfack – University of Arts, Crafts and Design with a focus on sustainability, but also teaches in other Swedish universities, including in Italy. She is co-founder and co-director of Nordic Biomimicry, a center dedicated to collaborating with nature as a mentor, measure and method. In her spare time she is a beekeeper, olive grove-keeper, grows biodynamic wine, and has started a contemporary Nature Academy in Tuscany.

Jordi Riembau Ribot is a co-founder of Nordest architecture SLP. He received his degree in architecture from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 2003. After collaborating in various architecture studios in the city of Barcelona, ​​he founded, in 2004, together with Anna López, the TAB_arquitectes studio. In 2011 he created his own studio; This Is Estudi d’Arquitectura, in which he developed projects in the Girona region, mainly in the Baix Empordà area. At the beginning of 2016, together with Miquel Rusca, he formed the Society This IS Estudi d’Arquitectura SLP. In 2018 he founded, together with Miquel Rusca, Nordest architecture SLP.

Miguel Rusca Mestre is a co-founder of Nordest architecture SLP.  He received his degree in architecture from l'Escola Politècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Girona in 2014. After collaborating in Domènec Rusca's family office for 6 years, in 2012 he collaborated with the architecture studio Hidalgo- Hartmann in Barcelona. In 2014 he collaborated with Jordi Riembau in This Is Estudi d’Arquitectura studio. At the beginning of 2016, he joined the Society This Is Estudi d’Arquitectura SLP. In 2018 he founded, together with Jordi Riembau, Nordest architecture SLP.

Patricia Grande has worked as an architect since graduating from the Universidad Politécnica of Madrid in 2003. From 2011 until 2013 she was lecturer at the ETSAM in Madrid and from 2005 until 2013 she was Project Manager at Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos in Madrid. In August 2013 she took over the Position of Project Manager and Partner at Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos Berlín. As Head of Competitions she is in charge of the development of competitions and design projects taking full responsibility for the project management including client management and assessing potential projects. Furthermore she is responsible for technical support of the design and project teams as well as for the recruitment.

The Gaudi La Coma Artists’ Residences competition is the first in a series of design competitions run in partnership with the Gaudi Knowledge Association and Inngenium Lab to celebrate Gaudi’s intellectual heritage. For this competition, participants are asked to submit designs for a sustainable artists’ residence and education complex called “La Coma”. It will be located in Huesca, Spain, and would need to follow Antoni Gaudi’s design values and principles of sustainability, functionality, aesthetics, and innovation.