Portuguese Architect Ines Lobo wins the arcVision Prize – Women and Architecture 2014.
Special Mentions to Anna Heringer, Shimul Jhaveri Kadri and Cecilia Puga.
The jury unanimously selected Lobo as a versatile architect, recognized for her ability to work at different scales, integrating new buildings within existing urban fabric and creatively attacking complex architectural problems.“
Bergamo, 7 March 2014 – Ines Lobo is the winner of the 2014 arcVision Prize – Women and Architecture, an international architecture award for female designers now in its second year.
Ms Lobo was enthusiastically chosen by the Jury, whose members this year were Shaikha Al Maskari (an Abu Dhabi businesswoman and member of the board of the Arab International Women’s Forum-AIWF), Vera Baboun (Mayor of Bethlehem), Odile Decq (owner of the Odile Decq firm in Paris), Louisa Hutton (English founding partner of the Sauerbruch Hutton architectural practice), Suhasini Maniratnam (an Indian actress, producer and writer deeply involved in community service), Samia Nkrumah (born in Ghana, president of the Kwame Nkrumah Pan-African Center), Kazuyo Sejima (owner with Ryue Nishizawa of the SANAA architectural practice in Tokyo), Benedetta Tagliabue (founding partner with Enric Miralles of the EMBT architectural firm in Barcelona), Martha Thorne (born in the USA, director of the Pritzker Prize), Elena Zambon (chairman of the Italian pharmaceuticals company Zambon S.p.A.).
The arcVision prize 2014 Jury
The arcVision Prize recognizes the innovation and sustainability of the projects and constructions presented, with a special focus on the standards of technological innovation, environmental quality, cost-effective use of resources, social responsibility, functional and aesthetic research.
Carlo Pesenti
““New design concepts, different approaches to materials and construction processes, conservation of the natural environment, care for local social and cultural values. Narrated through the professional experience of female designers from all over the world, who have brought techniques, aesthetic sensitivities and different colors from all over the world.”
“With this award, said Carlo Pesenti, we want to highlight the female vision of architecture as it changes and molds itself to today’s new social and human models.”
The Prize winner was announced today in Bergamo, twenty-one designers were short-listed for the prize, from 15 countries: Austria, Chile, Egypt, France, Germany, Japan, India, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, USA.
INES LOBO
Ines Lobo, a graduate of the Technical University of Lisbon (FAULT, 1989) established her own architecture office in 2002. She combines professional practice with teaching at the Autonoma University in Lisbon. In her architecture, building conversion plays an important role, giving her an opportunity to free herself from the pre-constituted models of classic Modernism.
Among her outstanding projects, many of which are in the public realm and located in Portugal, is the Art and Architecture Faculty in Evora, where annexes were substituted with new construction and the courtyard newly configured.
Taking inspiration from the existing industrial architecture and its systems, she defined strategies to employ in the new construction, yet her work is clearly contemporary, informed by the past, but looking toward the future.
In the office building for the headquarters of Ferreira Construction, she balanced the existing building, green space and the new construction.
Using translucent material to manage the light entering the new building she creates an interesting facade that changes throughout the hours of day and night.
She is precise, very skilled in terms of her use of materials and the combination of materials. Although her buildings may seem understated, they are extremely powerful in terms of geometry and radical in their approach.
The jury spoke of the rich counterpoint that she establishes between existing buildings and the new additions she creates. The jury highlighted the integrity and authenticity of her works. Her buildings reflect her independent and free approach to architecture, as creator of social spaces.
When we telephoned the winner, she said: “It’s such a surprise! I am really surprised. I would like to elaborate, but it’s not easy. It’s really an important prize, with such an international vision, and also because it’s underline that it’s still difficult to be a woman architect.
I am also very pleased to receive this award on occasion of the celebration for the 100 years since the birth of architect Bo Bardi, since one century ago it was even more difficult for women.
But I would like to dedicate this prize – if you allow me – to all the people that make me to believe that architecture it’s a powerful way to build a better world for everybody, not matter if women or men.””.
THE PRIZE
The Prize is a two-week research workshop and an amount of € 50,000, part of which may be devolved to social projects, at the discretion of the winner.
On completion of the workshop the winner will recount her experience in a lecture during Milan Design Week, as part of the series “Millennium” meetings with the world of Architecture.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
The Jury, whose meetings were coordinated by the Scientific Director of the Prize, Stefano Casciani, also awarded Special Mentions to Austrian-german Anna Heringer, Indian Shimul Jhaveri Kadri and Chilean Cecilia Puga.
Anna Heringer
““From her studio in Laufen, Germany, Heringer’s vision focuses on the social and cultural responsibility of architecture, which she also sees as a tool to raise users’ awareness of their right to quality of life through the quality of buildings. Her most significant project is the Training Center in Rudrapur, Bangladesh, where she experiments with local, simple building techniques and intelligent
solutions for integrated sustainability.”
Anna Heringer, Germania, Photo by Stefano Mori
Shimul Kadri
“Kadri with her firm, SJK Architects, is particularly interested in reconciling an egalitarian and democratic form of architecture with the need for individual expression. The result is an eclectic language, ranging from citations from the Indian tradition, to the elegant modernism of the offices for Nirvana Film, one of her best-known projects. This ‘flexible inspiration’ enables Kadri to develop work environments that are both innovative and comfortable, balancing the needs of the company with those of the workers.”
Shimul Javeri Kadri, India, Photo by NAGESH OHAL
Cecilia Puga
“With her own practice in Santiago de Chile since 19 With her own practice in Santiago de Chile since 1995, Cecilia Cecilia Puga is an architect who is more an architect who is more
interested in structural solutions than in surface aesthetics. She has shown sensitively in relating the exterior and interior of buildings, and therefore sensitivity to the activities that will take place in her architecture. The library at the Faculty of Architecture, located on a difficult and constricted site, enables the landscape to be restored and unveils wonderful views. She is able to create strong buildings that are at the same time open and inviting.”
Cecilia Puga, Cile
During the ceremony, arcVision Prize commemorated one anniversaries falling in 2014: the centenary of the birth of architect Lina Bo Bardi, a fascinating woman and outstanding figure in 20th-century architecture.
Lina Bo Bardi, 1978. (Photo Instituto Lina Bo e P.M Bardi, Sao Paulo)
documentation
http://www.institutobardi.com.br
