Architecture office Bonell+Dòriga has received the Lisbon Triennale Millennium bcp Début Award. The Début Award was first given in 2013 and was conceived “to support young architects under 35 on outstanding work and development on original design and critical ideas in the expanded field of architectural practice.” The award is given every three years and is granted to a European office for the first time, previous winners were North-American architect Jimenez Lai from Bureau Spectacular (2013) and Chilean office Umwelt (2016).
Bonell+Dòriga was set up by Laura Bonell and Daniel López-Dòriga in Barcelona in 2014. As with many other offices of their city, their professional practice started with interior renovations and architecture competitions. Their first work, a flat renovation in carrer Rosselló (Barcelona), was included by Italian magazine Casabella in their “Architects Under 30” special issue. A window they designed for an Eixample flat in 2015 received a special mention of the Bauwelt Prize, awarded by the German magazine of the same name; and in 2018 they received two AJAC awards, given by the Young Catalan Architects Association.
They’ve recently completed the refurbishment of one of the apartments in iconic building Walden-7, and they are currently working in three private projects in Barcelona, and a large-scale project in the city of Ingolstadt, Germany: a digital centre for technological start-ups that includes the restoration of an old armoury building and the construction of new 10,000 m2 building. This project comes as the result of a First Prize obtained in a public competition in 2017, and is being developed in association with other offices of Barcelona and Munich.
They combine the practice of architecture with theoretical research. They have written essays for diverse international publications, and since 2016 they are working in a profound exploration that delves on the topic of the representation of domesticity throughout history. The results of this project, called “A Series of Rooms”, are published periodically in a dedicated website (www.aseriesofrooms.com) and an Instagram account.
On October 5th they received the award in a ceremony organized in the occasion of the opening of the Lisbon Triennale, in which influential architect Denise Scott Brown was awarded the “Lifetime Achievement” for her professional accomplishments. The composition of the jury for the Début Prize included Ana Dana Beros, Anna Ramos, Fosco Lucarelli, Go Hasegawa, Joaquim Moreno, Mariabruna Fabrizi y Sofia von Ellrichshausen. The rest of shotlisted teams were Bast (France), COMUNAL: Taller de Arquitectura (Mexico), gru.a (Brazil), Lacol (Spain), LANZA Atelier (Mexico), Lluís Alexandre Casanovas (Spain/USA), Norman Kelley (USA), sauermartins (Brazil), and SUPERVOID Architects (Italy).
