RIBA awarded their inaugural International Prize today to The Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC) in Lima by Grafton Architects and Shell Arquitectos. Open to architects worldwide, the Prize is RIBA's very own recognition award for “civil architecture that empowers people and societies to innovate and progress”, RIBA President Jane Duncan said. The grand jury, led by architect Richard Rogers, traveled to visit all six finalist buildings before making their final decision.
Irish practice Grafton Architects and Shell Arquitectos from Lima designed the brutalist vertical campus for UTEC, a 50-year-old engineering university that enables young Peruvians to gain engineering qualifications, and therefore encourage social mobility. The jury praised the UTEC building as a bold, masterful project that depicts Grafton Architects' years of experimenting with space and form.
“The vertical structure provides open circulation and meeting spaces in a succession of platforms that compose the ‘frame’ of the building; teaching rooms, laboratories and offices are enclosed, inserted into and suspended from the exposed concrete structure,” the jury described.
Grand jury member and head of the Awards Committee at RIBA, Philip Gumuchdjian, commented on UTEC's win over email: "The UTEC engineering building heroically expresses the vision of a people's university where ideas are free to soar."
In receiving the prize, Grafton Architects Directors Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara were honored and acknowledged the significant roles of client UTEC and local collaborator Shell Arquitectos. “We found that the educational aspirations of the client together with the unique climatic conditions of Lima gave us the opportunity to 'invent' a new vertical campus for their new University of Engineering,” they said. Farrell and McNamara will speak about UTEC during the International Prize Winner's Lecture at the RIBA headquarters on December 13.
Noember 25: This piece was updated with a comment from grand jury member Philip Gumuchdjian.
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