Barclay & Crousse's 'Edificio E' education building for the University of Piura in Peru has been crowned as the winner of the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize for 2018. The biennial award, conceived by IIT College of Architecture, recognizes distinguished architectural projects built in North and South America. Previous winners include SANAA's meandering Grace Farms, Álvaro Siza's Iberê Camargo Foundation in Brazil, and Herzog & de Meuron's 1111 Lincoln Road project in Miami.
Set within a dry savannah landscape in the north of Peru, this new university building creates a compact and complex network of interconnected classrooms, offices, and open spaces specifically designed to accommodate students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Set within a dry savannah landscape in the north of Peru, this new university building creates a compact and complex network of interconnected classrooms, offices, and open spaces specifically designed to accommodate students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“The ambiguous, shaded exterior spaces sheltered by the buildings that form the whole were created to provide a place for informal learning and for life in the broadest sense. It has been immensely rewarding to see how students and professors occupy the structure, and to see how it has created a new centrality on campus, where people stay independently of having classes," said Barclay & Crousse.
Selecting from over 175 nominated projects that had been trimmed down to only six finalists, the jury this year were focused on projects that showed potential for lasting influence on both architecture and culture. In other words, projects that, as described by MCHAP Director Dirk Denison, "push forward the development of architecture as a practice, reshaping how we see and organize the built environment around us", and that "participate in the larger cultural exchange that is an essential characteristic of the Americas today."
The jurors commended the project's ability to create a social landscape hosting students and faculty from across the University, where the design between classrooms serves as a new kind of public space. “It is not just a project but an exploration of a type, and therefore a set of spatial notions that invites emulation and even replication,” said Rodrigo Pérez de Arce.
Responding to both a demanding climate as well as active seismic activity in the region, Barclay & Crousse's work also displayed a confident approach to the many environmental challenges of today, a feature of the design also celebrated by the jurors. "This is perhaps the first building I have seen where the trees were as important as the classrooms. And it is inspiring to see the idea of designing for earthquakes resulting in a building that is at the same time many buildings," commented jury member Claire Weisz.
