Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined [VIDEOS]

Kengo Kuma was born in Yokohama (Kanagawa, Japan) in 1954. He studied architecture at the University of Tokyo, finishing his degree in 1979. In 1987, he opened the "Spatial Design Studio". In 1990 he founded "Kengo Kuma & Associates" and extended the study to Europe (Paris, France) in 2008. Since 1985 and until 2009, has taught as a visiting professor and holder at the universities of Columbia, Keio, Illinois and Tokyo.

Notable projects include Japan National Stadium (2019), V&A Dundee (2019), Odunpazari Modern Art Museum (2019), and The Suntory Museum of Art (2007).

Kengo Kuma proposes architecture that opens up new relationships between nature, technology, and human beings. His major publications include Zen Shigoto(The complete works, Daiwa S hobo)Ten Sen Men (“point, line, plane”, IwanamiShoten), Makeru Kenchiku (Architecture of Defeat, Iwanami Shoten), Shizen na Kenchiku(Natural Architecture, Iwanami Shinsho), Chii sana Kenchiku (Small Architecture, IwanamiShinsho) and many others.

Main Awards:

· 2011 The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Prize for "Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum."
· 2010 Mainichi Art Award for “Nezu Museum.”
· 2009 "Decoration Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" (France).
· 2008 Energy Performance + Architecture Award (France). Bois Magazine International Wood Architecture Award (France).
· 2002 Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award (Finland).
· 2001 Togo Murano Award for “Nakagawa-machi Bato Hiroshige Museum.”
· 1997 Architectural Institute of Japan Award for “Noh Stage in the Forest”. First Place, AIA DuPONT Benedictus Award for “Water/Glass” (USA).

Eduardo Souto de Moura was born in Porto, Portugal, on July 25, 1952. His father was an ophthalmologist, and his mother was a homemaker. He has one brother and one sister: she is also a doctor, and his brother is a lawyer with a political career that led him to serve as Attorney General of Portugal. He is married to architect Luisa Penha and has three daughters: Maria Luísa (an architect), Maria da Paz (a nurse), and Maria Eduarda, who is currently in her third year of architecture studies at the Faculty of Architecture in Porto.

He completed his early education at the Italian School of Porto. He later enrolled in the School of Fine Arts in the same city, where he initially studied sculpture. However, after a decisive encounter in Zurich with the artist Donald Judd, he decided to shift his professional path toward architecture. During his academic years, he worked with architects Noé Dinis and, later, Álvaro Siza, with whom he collaborated for five years. He also participated, together with his urbanism professor Fernandes de Sá, in a project for a market in Braga, which has since been demolished due to changes in commercial patterns.

After completing two years of military service, in 1980 he won the competition for the Casa das Artes in Porto, marking the beginning of his career as an independent architect. That same year, he founded his practice. In 1997, he completed the conversion of the Monastery of Santa Maria do Bouro into the Pousada Mosteiro de Amares, a state-run hotel that combines contemporary elements with the original 12th-century architecture. Among his most acclaimed works is also the Estádio Municipal de Braga (2003), carved into the side of a former quarry—an outstanding example of integration with the natural environment. In 2009, he completed the Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, near Lisbon, whose red, pyramidal roofs create a powerful visual relationship with the surrounding landscape.

Throughout his career, he has been invited as a guest professor at many prestigious architecture schools, including Harvard, ETH Zurich, EPFL Lausanne, Paris-Belleville, Dublin, and Geneva, in addition to his continued work at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto. In these academic settings, he has maintained intellectual dialogue and exchange with architects such as Jacques Herzog and Aldo Rossi.

His work, often described as “neo-Miesian,” is characterized by meticulous material selection—granite, wood, marble, brick, steel, and concrete—and a strong sensitivity to the use of color. Nevertheless, he avoids using endangered materials and advocates for responsible usage, especially of wood, promoting reforestation. He has stated that “there is no ecological architecture, no intelligent architecture, no sustainable architecture; there is only good architecture,” emphasizing that contemporary issues—energy, resources, costs, and social aspects—must always be considered. In this sense, he views architecture as a global issue.

At various times, he has expressed fascination with Mies van der Rohe, highlighting the tension between classicism and neoplasticism in Mies’s work, and the experimentation that made him “so modern that he was already post.” Although Souto de Moura acknowledges the Miesian influence—particularly evident in his Burgo Tower—he aligns himself with the reflection by Francesco Dal Co: “It is better to be good than original, rather than very original and bad.”

Souto de Moura has been recognized with numerous international awards. In 2011, he received the Pritzker Prize and was praised during the ceremony by then-U.S. President Barack Obama, who highlighted his Braga stadium. In 2018, he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, and in 2024, he was decorated with the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture.

A staunch advocate of situated, specific, and conscious architecture, he affirms that “there is no such thing as universal architecture; everything is rooted in its place.” He believes that designing involves building urban and geographic fragments, uniting ethics and aesthetics, just as the Greeks did. The son of a doctor, he has compared his professional approach to that of a physician carefully examining a patient’s body, underlining the precision, observation, and constant revision inherent to his methodology. He also encourages young architects to embrace rigorous study, travel, and continuous effort as fundamental pillars of architectural education.

Born and raised in a country shaped by the Age of Discovery, dictatorship, and the Carnation Revolution, his architecture reflects a deep cultural awareness and a firm commitment to the challenges of the present. In an age of ecological crises and natural disasters, Souto de Moura continues to design with the conviction that only intelligence, culture, and attention to context can lead to truly good architecture. The world now waits in anticipation for his next masterpiece.

Grafton Architects was established in 1978. Directors Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara are both graduates of UCD, are Fellows of the RIAI, are International Honorary Fellows of the RIBA and are elected members of Aosdána, the eminent Irish Art organisation.

Teachers at the School of Architecture at University College Dublin from 1976 to 2002, they have been visiting professors at Accademia d’Archittettura, Mendrisio, EPFL, Lausanne, held the Kenzo Tange chair at GSD Harvard and the Louis Kahn chair at Yale University.

They have been external examiners at numerous universities including Cambridge University and The London Metropolitan School of Architecture. As well as public lectures in Dublin and abroad, including the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin and the Royal Academy in London, they have lectured widely in European and American Schools of Architecture.

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara. 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Diébédo Francis Kéré (b.1965, in Gando, Burkina Faso, west Africa) trained at the Technical University of Berlin in Germany, started his Berlin based practice, Kéré Architecture, in 2005. Kéré Architecture has been recognised nationally and internationally with awards, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2004) for his first building, a primary school in Gando, Burkina Faso; LOCUS Global Award for Sustainable Architecture (2009); Global Holcim Award Gold (2011 and 2012); Green Planet Architects Award (2013); Schelling Architecture Foundation Award (2014); and the Kenneth Hudson Award –European Museum of the Year (2015).

Projects undertaken by Francis Kéré span countries, including Burkina Faso,Mali, China, Mozambique, Kenya, Togo, Sudan, Germany and Switzerland. He has taught internationally, including the Technical University of Berlin, and he has held professorships at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Accademia di Architettura di Mendriso in Switzerland.

Kéré’s work has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions: Radically Simple at the Architecture Museum, Munich (2016) and The Architecture of Francis Kéré: Building for Community, Philadelphia Museum of Art (2016). His work has also been selected for group exhibitions: Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010) and Sensing Spaces, Royal Academy, London (2014).

Among his main works are the Primary School (2001) and the Library (under construction) of Gando, Burkina Faso; the Health and Social Promotion Center (2014) and the Opera Village (under construction), both in Laongo, Burkina Faso; the Satellite of the Volksbühne Theater at the Tempelhof Airport, in Berlin (temporary installation, 2016); or the Pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery of the year 2017.

Li Xiaodong (b.1963, China) is a practicing architect, educator and researcher on architecture. He established Li Xiaodong Atelier in 1997, and his work ranges from in teriors to architecture and urban spaces. Currently, he is chair/professor at the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, in Beijing. He graduated from the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University in 1984. He completed his Ph.D. at the School of Architecture, Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands in 1993.

His work has won national and international design awards, including a 2010 Aga Khan Award for Architecture for Bridge School in Fujian Province, a World Architecture Festiva l award in 2012 for Liyuan Library , and the Architecture of Necessity Award, Sweden in 2013. Xiaodong has also received the UNESCO Jury Award for Innovation for Yuhu Elementary School. In 2011 he was named Man of the Year in China by GQ Magazine.

His publications in articles and books in both English and Chinese covers cultural studies, history and theory of architecture, and urban studies.

Álvaro Joaquim Melo Siza Vieira was born in Matosinhos (near Porto), in 1933. From 1949-55 he studied at the School of Architecture, University of Porto. His first built project was finished in 1954. From 1955-58 he was collaborator of Arch. Fernando Távora. He taught at the School of Architecture (ESBAP) from 1966-69 and was appointed Professor of "Construction" in 1976. He was a Visiting Professor at the Ècole Polythéchnique of Lausanne, the University of Pennsylvania, Los Andes University of Bogotá and the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University; he taught at the School of Architecture of Porto (jubilate in 2003).

He is the author of many projects such as: the Boa Nova Tea House and Restaurant; 1200 dwellings built in Malagueira, Évora; the Superior School of Education in Setúbal, the new School of Architecture in Porto; the Library of Aveiro University; the Museum of Modern Art in Porto; the Church and Parochial Centre in Marco de Canavezes; the Pavilion of Portugal for EXPO '98 and the Pavilion of Portugal in Hannover 2000 (with Souto de Moura); the dwelling and offices complex of “Terraços de Bragança” in Lisbon; and he has rebuilt the burnt area of Chiado in Lisbon since 1988, including the projects for some buildings like Castro e Melo, Grandella, Chiado Stores, and others.

He has been coordinated the plan of Schilderswijk's recuperation in The Hague, Holland, since 1985, which finished in 89; in 1995 he finished the project for blocs 6-7-8 in Ceramique Terrein, Maastricht.

In Spain he has completed the projects for the Meteorological Centre of Villa Olimpica in Barcelona; the Museum of Contemporary Art of Galicia and the Faculty of Information Sciences in Santiago de Compostela; the Rectorate of the Alicante University; Zaida building – offices, commercial and dwelling complex in Granada; Sportive Complex Cornellà de L’lobregat in Barcelona.

Cultural Centre and auditorium for the Ibere Camargo Foundation in Brazil; Municipal Centre of Rosario in Argentina; lodging-house in the Plan of Recuperation and Transformation of Cidade Velha in Cap Vert; Serpentine Pavillion (2005) with Eduardo Souto Moura; Museum of Modern Art of Naples in Italy; Anyang Pavilion in South Korea (with Carlos Castanheira); Mimesis Museum in South Korea (with Carlos Castanheira); are to be mentioned.

He has participated in several lectures and conferences in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Norway, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, England, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Canada, United States, Romania, Greece, South Korea and Sweden.

Having been invited to participate in international competitions, he won the first place in Schlesisches Tor, Kreuzberg, Berlin (now built), at the recuperation of Campo di Marte in Venice (1985) and at the renewal of Casino and Café Winkler, Salzburg (1986); Cultural Centre for the La Defensa, Madrid (with José Paulo Santos) (1988/89); J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California (with Peter Testa) (1993); Pietà Rondanini Room, Sforzesco Castell, Milan (1999); Special Plan Recoletos-Prado, Madrid (with Juan Miguel Hernandez Leon e Carlos Riaño) (2002); Toledo Hospital (Sánchez-Horneros office) (2003); “Atrio de la Alhambra” in Spain (with Juan Domingo Santos)(2010); “Parco delle Cave”, Lecce in Italy (with Carlos Castanheira) (2010).

He has participated in the competitions for Expo 92 in Sevilla, Spain (with Eduardo Souto de Moura and Adalberto Dias) (1986); for "Un Progetto per Siena", Italy (with José Paulo Santos) (1988); the Cultural Centre La Defensa in Madrid, Spain (1988/89); the Bibliothèque of France in Paris (1989/90), the Helsinki Museum (with Souto de Moura) (1992-93); Flamenco City of Xerez de la Frontera, Spain (with Juan Miguel Hernandez Leon) (2003).

From 1982 to 2010 has won many different awards and have been assigned with Medals of Cultural Merit from many country around the world. Doctor "Honoris Causa" in various European and International universities.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science; "Honorary Fellow" of the Royal Institute of British Architects; AIA/American Institute of Architects; Académie d'Architecture de France and European Academy of Sciences and Arts; Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts; IAA/International Academy of Architecture; American Academy of Arts and Letters.