Brazilian architect Carla Juaçaba has been announced as the winner of the inaugural arcVision - Women and Architecture Prize, an international social architecture award instituted by the Italcementi Group. The prize honors Juaçaba’s work for exemplifying significant qualitative excellence and attention to the core issues of construction, such as technology, sustainability, social and cultural implications.
More on Carla Juacaba after the break...
Following her training at the Santa Ursula University (1999), Juaçaba developed an independent practice of architecture and research based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As described by the Italcementi Group, “Her most exciting project in this research area, the Umanidade 2012 pavilion for Rio Mas 20 (the UN conference on sustainable development), was designed and built together with an artist, Bia Lessa. The symbolic value of the pavilion, an impermanent structure, is heightened by the fact that Rio Mas 20 was an important opportunity for a global assessment of what is being done or not being done to save the Earth from environmental disaster. The best is achieved with low-cost, easily dismantled and continually recyclable constructions.”
The jury described the 37-year-old architect as a “complete” architect, who embraces all aspects of context, environment, nature, parameters and materials with each commission.
The reward is a two-week research workshop at i.lab, the Italcementi Group R&D Center in Bergamo, and € 50,000, part of which may be devolved to social projects at the discretion of the winner.
The Jury also awarded three Special Mentions, to Izaskun Chinchilla from Spain for her non-conventional approach, Anupama Kundoo from India for her skill in researching materials, and Siiri Vallner from Estonia for her sensitive interpretation of spaces.
2013 archVision Jury:
- Shaikha Al Maskari (Member of the Steering Committee of the Arab International Women’s Forum-AIWF)
- Vera Baboun (Mayor of Bethlehem)
- Odile Decq (head of the ODBC architectural firm)
- Victoire de Margerie (Chairman Rondol Technology )
- Yvonne Farrell (with Shelley McNamarahead of the Grafton Architects architectural firm)
- Samia Nkrumah (President of the Kwame Nkrumah Pan African Center)
- Kazuyo Sejima (with Ryue Nishizawa head of the SANAA architectural firm)
- Benedetta Tagliabue (founder with Enric Miralles of the EMBT architectural firm)
- Martha Thorne (Director Pritzker Prize)
The Jury met in Bergamo on March 6-7, 2013, and was assisted by the Scientific Director of the Prize, Stefano Casciani .
via news.gnom.es
