2015 FAD Awards celebrate stellar architectural design from Spain and Portugal

Top-notch Barcelonese, Catalan, and Iberian modern architecture take the spotlight in the prestigious FAD Architecture and Interior Design Awards, established in 1958. This year's jury selected the winning projects based on qualities like sensitivity to setting and context, addressing complex and timely issues, and innovative work in materials and construction.

During the awards ceremony at the FAD headquarters in the Disseny Hub Barcelona last month, category winners were announced for Architecture, Interior Design, Town and Landscape, Ephemeral Intervention, and International. Established two years ago, the International category highlights projects around the world that were designed by studios based in Spain and Portugal. Starting out with 458 entries total, the jury selected 16 finalists and 4 International finalists.

Additionally, ceremony attendees had the chance to vote in a people's-choice sector of the competition called the FAD Opinion Awards, while selected particular local architectural publications were recognized in the FAD Thought and Criticism Awards.

Get a glimpse of this year's winning projects below.

2015 FAD Architecture Award

Work: Ozadi Tavira Hotel
Location: Quinta das Oliveiras, Algarve. Tavira (Portugal)
Author: Pedro Campos Costa, architect (Campos Costa Arquitectos)

Jury verdict: “The renovation of this Hotel erected in the 1960s has been approached intelligently and sensitively highlighting the values of the original construction. The intervention achieves its cusp in its reformulation of the access level and a new pool area with a pavilion housing the coffee shop and changing rooms. The new pavilion, complex in its geometry, has been integrated discreetly and with great subtleness between the existing structure and the new pool area, arranging the access points around the great tree that articulates the whole with its majestic presence.  The geometrical, spatial and constructional complexity of the pavilion rests not on seeking the limelight as mere gesture, but rather surrendering with  naturalness to an architectural will to create pleasing surroundings and discrete spatial flows imaginatively and with freshness, achieving a welcoming whole where the architecture acts as companion and agent of transformation."

2015 FAD Architecture Award

Work: Casa Bastida
Location: Begur (Girona)
Authors: Elisabet Capdeferro i Pla, Ramon Bosch i Pagès, architects (Bosch Capdeferro, s.c.p.)

Jury verdict: “Credit was given to the profoundly enhanced integration of the preexisting building and the privileged setting. The lines between structure and nature are diffused by the use of subtle underlying elements of greenery which, as well as increasing privacy, provide shade and enhance the relationship between internal and external space.”

2015 FAD Interior Design Award

Work: Sāo Paulo Library
Location: Rua de Sāo Paulo, sn. Apelaçāo (Portugal)
Authors: Patrícia Marques, J. Paulo Costa, architects (Site Specific Arquitectura, Lda) 

Jury verdict: "Luminosity, precise dimensioning and a unified choice of materials, textures and colours form the basis for a successful architectural objective that interprets the spiritual requirements of the religious community intelligently and sensitively.”

2015 FAD Town and Landscape Award

Work: Access improvement to Vitoria-Gasteiz Historic Centre
Location: Vitoria-Gasteiz (Álava)
Authors: Fernando Tabuenca González, Jesús Leache Resano, architects (Tabuenca & Leache, Arquitectos)

Jury verdict: “This intervention in Vitoria-Gasteiz’s historic centre provides a solution that contributes a synthetic vision to the problems of the distinctive layout of the city’s medieval structure and particularly the surroundings of the Old Seminary. The result is an effective, subtle and sensitive exercise that grants prominence to the Seminary’s apse, provides answers for pedestrian walkways and enhances accessibility by means of mechanical ramps and elevator, all the outcome of seeking a peaceful and lasting integration appropriate to the time dimension that underlies the urban scale."

2015 FAD Ephemeral Intervention Award

Work: The Tears of Santa Eulàlia
Location: Casa Padellàs, MUHBA, Plaça del Rei, Barcelona
Authors: Mariona Benedito Ribelles, Martí Sanz Ausàs, architects, Ana Bádenas, Júlia Doz, Bruguers Gallego, Jordi Juanola, Joan Ruiz, architecture students (ETSAB-UPC)

Jury verdict: "A striking work combining the dynamism of the thawing spheres of light as a simulation of Santa Eulalia’s tears with the metallic sound play produced by the harmonic cadence of their dripping. The aural effects of the rhythmic drops of water within a courtyard serving as soundbox achieves its evocation of the chilling martyrdom and agonising passing of time, at the same time marking the slow perishing of the installation itself. An intelligent exercise in synthesising physical phenomena with stirring light and sound results in reaching a level that is poetic.”

2015 FAD International Award

Work: 253 Homess at Ivry-Sur-Seine, Paris Region. France (First Phase)
Location: Carnot Vérollot, Ivry-Sur-Seine (França)
Authors: Miquel Lacasta, doctor in architecture, Marc Chalamanch, Carmen Santana, architects (Archikubik)

Jury verdict: "This project is an elegant tranquil complex conceived as a garden suburb on the outskirts of Paris whose social dimension is accentuated by its long term vision and participative process. The project generates its own context, developing different layers of complexity between the public and the private, thereby giving meaning to the setting. It presents a caringly landscaped traffic-free space between buildings. Attention to detail is also found in the balcony woodwork and the public access zones. Spaces which act as a filter between public streets and the interior of private homes invite the residents to live in community (perfect for children and older people). The jury considers it highly important to re-address the subject of social housing in the context of architectural competitions, as a much-needed debate clearly reflecting the current state of architecture and the role of architects at this time."

2015 FAD Thought and Criticism Awards

Title: Desierto
Authors: Gabriel Ruiz-Larrea, Nuria Úrculo and Natalia David
Publisher: Paper / Architectural Histamine

Jury verdict: “The Desierto review attaches importance in equal measure to the paper format itself as much in relation to the written theme as in the way of reading the content in the way we are accustomed these days. It is also worth remarking on the magnificent manifesto presented in the various issues containing high quality ideas. In summary, it is a mature and clear-sighted statement of ideas”

Title: Quaderns d'Arquitectura i Urbanisme
Author: José Zabala, editor, Ethel Baraona, Guillermo López and Anna Puigjaner
Publisher: Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya

Jury verdict: “Quaderns places great stress on the relationship between hard copy and digital, blog and observatory, thereby creating an immediacy and exhaustiveness that have opened the way for this review to become a common point for synthesis or for bringing forth and launching new themes. In this regard the panel finds special merit not just in the issue submitted for this edition but in the overall activities carried out in the five preceding issues (nos. 261 to 265).”

FAD Opinion Awards

Architecture:

Work: Centre de Recerca ICTA-ICP. UAB
Location: Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona
Authors: Claudi Aguiló Aran, architect, Albert Domingo Ollé, industrial engineer (data AE), David Lorente Ibáñez, Josep Ricart Ulldemolins, Xavier Ros Majó, Roger Tudó Galí, architects (HArquitectes)

Interior Design:

Work: Poble-Sec home re-design
Location: Barcelona
Authors: Miquel Mariné, Pepe Ramos Temiño, architects

Town and Landscape:

Work: Vitoria-Gasteiz Historic Centre access improvement
Location: Vitoria-Gasteiz
Authors: Fernando Tabuenca González, Jesús Leache Resano, architects (Tabuenca & Leache Arquitectos).

Ephemeral Interventions:

Work: Saint Eulàlia’s Tears
Location: Barcelona
Authors: Mariona Benedito Ribelles, Martí Sanz Ausàs, architects, Ana Bádenas, Júlia Doz, Bruguers Gallego, Jordi Juanola, Joan Ruiz, architecture students (ETSAB-UPC)

International:

Work: Szczecin Philharmonic
Location: Szczecin (Poland)
Authors: Alberto Veiga, Fabrizio Barozzi, architects (Barozzi / Veiga)