Architecture competition "Iceland Northern Lights Rooms" 3rd prize winners - Catarina Oom de Sousa, Carla Romagosa Girós and Eftalia Proios Torras

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to the winners of the 3rd prize of our “Iceland Northern Lights Rooms” competition - Catarina Oom de Sousa, Carla Romagosa Girós and Eftalia Proios Torras from Spain!

Catarina Oom de Sousa, Carla Romagosa Girós and Eftalia Proios Torras from Spain

C2E is a young multidisciplinary design group created to bring architectural solutions to conflicts involving the built environment, natural context and social progress.

Established in 2018 in Barcelona, their main focus is to respond to a world in constant change, where it envisions design to gravitate towards rooting humanity to its foundational origin - nature.

Catarina Oom is a Portuguese architect, graduated from the Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Arquitetura (FAUL). She had the opportunity to study for one semester in Rome at Università degli studi di Roma Tre, Facoltà di Architettura. While doing her Master’s Thesis ‘Architecture for Alzheimer’s Disease’, healthcare architecture and Evidence Based Design started to be a topic of great interest and research. Currently she is attending a Master’s degree in BIM Management at CICE, Madrid, and working at Pinearq, an architectural firm in Barcelona.

Carla Romagosa is a Spanish architect graduated from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB-UPC). She also has experience in Paris, studying at the École National Supérieure d’Architecture Paris-Belleville. In 2017, she finished her Master’s degree in BIM Management at Ramon Llull University (La Salle). She is exploring the integration and implementation of BIM strategies for the development of healthy environments. Currently she is working in Pinearq, an architectural firm in Barcelona.

Eftalia Proios is a Greek and Spanish architect, who graduated with honors from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB-UPC). She has contributed to the research of Strategies for Urban Metabolism led by Laboratori d’Urbanisme de Barcelona since 2014. Approaching it from a design standpoint during collaborative workshops with ULB and IUAV, she has kept on pursuing the potential alignments of ecology and urbanism through a broader territorial framework for the local course Urbanisme i Ecologia in Barcelona. By hand of SOM, she has developed diverse proposals aimed to sustainable urban development in US and Asia, finally focusing on healthcare as a BIM Architect and Designer in Pinearq SLP.

Empowered by the expertise of three distinct cultural perspectives, C2E aims to tackle the challenges of the XXIst Century, confronting stereotypes dragged by times lived in abundance and squandering.

Brief information about the projects that you/your company have been involved with. For instance what scale have you focused on/preferred, any significant projects where company/ individuals have been involved?

As independent architects we have been involved in projects of diverse scales, locations and programs, with healthcare design the center of gravity that brought us together. Among others, our expertise includes architectural design across the globe, mainly focused in US, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Portugal.

What does architecture mean to you and what is the role of an architect in your society?

We consider architects to play a dual role in our society - to be attentive observers, but also impactful actors in the relationship that future generations will establish with their environment. Being part of the change means not only covering our immediate needs, but keeping sight of future growth patterns, being able to bring conclusions that can last sustainably longer. 

Why do you participate in architecture vision competitions?

Architecture vision competitions allow artists to explore the possibilities of the framework to its latest extent, something that is sometimes difficult when third party interests are involved. We consider these opportunities unequalled chances to present our conversation with context as a pure manifestation as a designer could expect.

What advice would you give to individuals who struggle to decide whether it would be beneficial for them to participate in architecture vision competitions?

As young professionals, we find vision competitions a gateway to express values that represent us as individuals. Usually those values get lost in translation through projects that focus more on delivery rather than their core arguments, for which we alternate – and advise other students and professionals to do likewise - our built projects with briefer interventions that engage more thoroughly with the public.