Inhabiting the shadow between two planes. House in Sotogrande by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos

Fran Silvestre Arquitectos is an architecture studio based in Valencia, founded in 2005 by architect Fran Silvestre. The studio operates from the former workshop of sculptor Andreu Alfaro, a 7,000 m² space where a multidisciplinary team of more than 50 professionals develops projects. Its work encompasses residential, cultural, corporate, and public buildings in different countries, characterized by formal purity, modulation, serialization, and the innovative use of materials and technologies.

Fran Silvestre was born on July 5, 1976, and graduated in Architecture from the School of Architecture of Valencia in 2001, obtaining his degree with honours. One year later, he completed his qualification as an urbanist at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e), also with the highest distinction. He holds a PhD in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, where he earned a Doctorate in Design with the distinction Cum Laude.

His professional education was further enriched by a fellowship to work in the studio of Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza, recipient of the Pritzker Prize, with whom he has maintained professional collaborations since then. In parallel, he has pursued an intense academic career: he has been a professor in the Department of Architectural Design at the Polytechnic University of Valencia since 2006 and at the European University since 2009. In 2011, he was appointed Deputy Director of the School of Architecture of Valencia, and in 2018, he was awarded the Victor L. Regnier Chair at Kansas State University (KSU), in the United States. He currently also directs the March Postgraduate School in Architecture and Design. He is the great-grandson of Valentín Silvestre Fombuena, who, according to the records of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, was the most prolific inventor in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards, including the Fundación Caja de Arquitectos Prize (2001), the COACV Architects’ Association Award (2010), and the Red Dot Design Award (2013). In 2012, he was appointed Ambassador of Spanish Architecture in the United States by the Ministry of Culture and Sport. He has also received the NYCxDESIGN Award (2016), the German Design Award on several occasions (2016, 2020, 2021, and 2024), the IF Design Award (2021), and the Bronze Delta Award at the ADI Awards (2024), as well as the first prize at the XIII Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (BEAU) in the design category. In 2022, he was awarded the First Prize with a Gold Medal in the Architecture category by the International Federation of Architects and Designers.

His work has been exhibited at international museums and institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Serralves Museum in Porto, and he has been invited to lecture at universities and institutions including KSU, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in New York, and Virginia Tech. His projects have been widely published in leading architectural journals such as Architectural Record, GA Houses, On-Diseño, and Interni, as well as by major publishers including Phaidon, Taschen, Thames & Hudson, and GG. Several monographs have documented the studio’s work, including those published by TC Cuadernos, A.Mag, and Arianuova, with particular note of the monograph published by Rizzoli (New York), featuring texts by critic Philip Jodidio.

Projects by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos are located across countries, including China, the United States, Brazil, Thailand, Egypt, Croatia, Italy, Australia, and Spain. Throughout its trajectory, the studio has worked on projects of both small and large scale. Notable works include the Atrium House (2009), the House on the Slope of a Castle (2010), the Cliff House (Alicante), the Balint House (Valencia), the Hollywood Hills House (Los Angeles), the Sabater House (Orihuela), the Zibo Master Plan (China), the Boutique Hotel in Vis (Croatia), and the Wind Tower (Valencia).

The studio’s architecture is deeply influenced by the work of Álvaro Siza and Andreu Alfaro. According to critic David Cohn, Fran Silvestre’s work is not driven by a search for a lost authenticity nor by the pursuit of the perfect geometry of form, but rather by the creation of environments that, through abstraction and precise architectural intention, elevate everyday life toward a more intense and conscious engagement with the surrounding environment.