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Josep Miàs: Boundaries

W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
December 07, 2016 at 7:00pm

Sometimes I tell that every project, competition, assignment we do is like a specific exercise of classic gymnastics. This is the reason why in our office we use the word exercise more than project. We say projects or definitely buildings only when they strike a balance with reality and leave the paper. Until then, they are exercises because this way they make possible to develop a parallel activity of personal, intellectual, independent investigation with very peculiar interests, which can later be or not included in the project. We check them continuously.

Drawing is the basic element to measure the potential of each proposal. We draw and redraw, again and again, and every new sketch must produce a new possibility, to be formalized in a three-dimensional construction, a model. As far as they create new chances the project will move forward, going to and fro, frantically.

This gymnastic exercise gives consistency and lucidity to our work.

Josep Mias black and white portrait

About Josep Miás:

Architect for ETSAB Barcelona. Associate Architect at Enric Miralles’s office from 1990 till 2000. Principal of award-winning practice Miàs Architects in Barcelona since 2000, commited to research and experimentation, and new approaches to technology, fabrication and construction.

Known worldwide for works such as Fontanals Golf Club, Banyoles City Center Urbanization, Barceloneta Market, 22@Plug-in Barcelona Building, iGuzzini Barcelona Corporate Building among others.
Winner of National and International Awards highlighting International Stone Architecture Award, A+Architizer Award, Archdaily Building of the Year Award, A+ Architecture Best Spanish Educational Facility Award, Catalonia Construction Award, City of Barcelona Architecture and Urbanism Award, Girona Architecture Award and Best Young Catalan Architect Award. Shortlisted at WAF Singapore Best Building of the Year Award. Nominated at European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture Mies Van der Rohe Award. And Finalist at Plataforma Arquitectura Work of the Year Award, European Prize for Public Space, European Landscape Prize, Decade Prize, and FAD Award. Recognition for International Relevance by AIA NYC, COAC and BarcelonaTech UPC. Works published and exhibited internationally in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich, Berlin, Kiev, London, São Paulo, Venezia, Belgrade, NYC, Philadelphia and Singapore among others.

Lecturer and Guest Critic in many International Universities and Visiting Professor at Städelschule Frankfurt and GSD Harvard Graduate School of Design Cambridge. Currently Professor at ETSAB Barcelona, and Visiting Professor at UNISS Alghero and Bartlett UCL London.