The BancaStato Swiss Architectural Award 2024 to Al Borde

Al Borde is the winner of the BancaStato Swiss Architectural Award 2024, a biennial international architecture prize promoted since 2018 by the Fondazione Teatro dell’architettura with the organisational and operational support of the Università della Svizzera italiana - Academy of Architecture (USI). The ninth edition of the award enjoys for the first time the support of Banca dello Stato del Cantone Ticino. As proof of this commitment, from the present edition the prize is named BancaStato Swiss Architectural Award.

The award has always recognised and highlighted architects from all over the world who, with particular sensitivity to ethical, aesthetic and ecological issues, have made a significant contribution to contemporary architectural culture, thereby improving the quality of human life and fostering public and disciplinary debate on the role of architecture in today's society. The prize is awarded, on a biennial basis, to architects not older than 50 years (in the year in which the Award is launched), without distinction of nationality, who have completed at least three significant works and have made a relevant contribution to contemporary architectural culture.

Also for this edition, the award reconfirms the collaboration between the three Swiss Schools of Architecture USI – Accademia di architettura; EPFL – ENAC, Section d’Architecture, Lausanne; ETHZ – Departement Architektur. Thanks to the consolidation of this synergy, the BancaStato Swiss Architectural Award is confirmed as one of the largest and most prestigious architecture prizes, with an advisory board of internationally renowned architects, critics and architectural historians nominating a shortlist of candidates from all over the world. The BancaStato Swiss Architectural Award, which amounts to CHF 100,000, will be presented to the winner on 8th May 2025 at the Auditorium of the Teatro dell’architettura Mendrisio of the Università della Svizzera italiana. The ceremony will launch the exhibition of the works submitted by the candidates.

Al Borde was chosen from 31 candidates from 17 countries, selected by the committee of advisors, who fully met the expectations of the award promoters and jury. The jury unanimously conferred the BancaStato Swiss Architectural Award 2024 to Al Borde for the Learning Viewpoint in the Cerro Blanco protected forest, Guayaquil, Ecuador, 2021-2022; the Raw Threshold Pavilion in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 2022-2023; the Yuyarina Pacha Community Library, Huaticocha, Orellana Province, Ecuador, 2023-2024, with the following motivation: “The three works presented by Al Borde convinced the jury for multiple reasons. In addition to the collective approach to design and construction, which is also reflected in the involvement of local communities, and the particular attention to climatic aspects, Al Borde’s works manifest a wide and thorough interpretation of the concept of sustainability, because it is rooted in the history of architecture and in a broad spectrum of references ranging from traditional building techniques to modern experimentations. Their research also involves the innovative reinterpretation of local materials, the definition of a contemporary vernacular and the crucial issues at stake locally: themes that Al Borde addresses with singular coherence and radicality”.

The jury of the ninth edition was chaired by Mario Botta and composed of Walter Angonese (Dean of the Academy of Architecture, USI), Sophie Delhay (Director of the Section d’Architecture, EPFL-ENAC), Matthias Kohler (Dean of the Departement Architektur, ETHZ) and Xu Tiantian (winner of the last edition of the award). The 31 candidates were nominated by a committee of advisor consisting of Manuel Aires Mateus, Lisbon (Portugal); Solano Benitez, Asunción (Paraguay); Giacomo Borella, Milan (Italy); Stéphanie Bru, Paris (France); Angelo Bucci, São Paulo (Brazil); Marianne Burkhalter, Zurich (Switzerland); Antón García-Abril, Madrid (Spain); Sean Godsell, Melbourne (Australia); Shelley McNamara, Dublin (Ireland); Valerio Olgiati, Flims (Switzerland); Martino Pedrozzi, Mendrisio (Switzerland); Adolph Stiller, Vienna (Austria); Elisa Valero, Granada (Spain).

The candidates in the BancaStato Swiss Architectural Award 2024 were: Adamo-Faiden (Sebastian Adamo, Marcelo Faiden, Argentina); Al Borde (Pascual Gangotena, David Barragán, Marialuisa Borja, Esteban Benavides, Ecuador); Assemble (Maria Lisogorskaya, Louis Edward Loft Schulz, Emily Claire Wickham, Mary Jet Anderson, James Donald Morley Binning, Holly Alexandra Briggs, Alice Mary Clare Edgerley, Anthony Thomas Engi Meacock, Irgel Enkhasaikhan, Mark Gavigan, Jane Lisa Issler Hall, Harry Maywood Johnson, Owen Robert Lacey, Matthew Leung, Giles Samuel Peter Smith, Jaymi Sudra, England UK); Atelier Scheidegger Keller (Christian Scheidegger, Jürg Keller, Switzerland); BC architects & studies & materials (Laurens Bekemans, Nicolas Coeckelberghs, Ken De Cooman, Wes Degreef, Belgium); Dunkelschwarz (Michael Höcketstaller, Hannes Sampl, Erhard Steiner, Austria); Gustav Düsing (Germany); EMI Architekt*innen (Elli Mosayebi, Christian Inderbitzin, Ron Edelaar, Switzerland); Carles Enrich (Spain); Lina Ghotmeh (France); GRU.A arquitetos (Caio Calafate, Pedro Varella, Brazil); H+F arquitetos (Pablo Hereñú, Eduardo Ferroni, Brazil); Anna Heringer (Germany); Anne Holtrop (Bahrain); La Cabina de la Curiosidad (Marie Combette, Daniel Moreno Flores, Ecuador); LUO Studio (Luo Yujie, China); Miguel Marcelino (Portugal); Material Cultures (Paloma Gormley, Summer Islam, George Massoud, England UK); Nuno Melo Sousa (Portugal); Michael Murphy (USA); Nomos (Katrien Vertenten, Lucas Camponovo, Ophélie Herranz, Paul Galindo, Switzerland); Carles Oliver Barceló (Spain); RAW Robust Architecture Workshop (Milinda Pathiraja, Ganga Ratnayake, Sri Lanka); Bas Smets (Belgium); SO-IL (Florian Idenburg, Jing Liu, USA); SOL 89 (María Gonzalez, Juanjo López de la Cruz, Spain); SUMA Arquitectura (Elena Orte, Guillermo Sevillano, Spain); VÃO arquitetos (Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel, Gustavo Delonero, Brazil); Suzuko Yamada (Japan); Yashar Yektajo (Mexico).

The Winner

Al Borde is an architecture studio based in Quito (Ecuador), founded in 2007 by David Barragán (1981), Pascual Gangotena (1977), Maríaluisa Borja (1984) and Esteban Benavides (1985), graduates of the School of Architecture, Design and Arts of the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Ecuador.

Al Borde “inhabits the territory of questioning, where certainties about what architecture should or should not be are under constant construction. Their ideas are developed in the making, with greater precision and detail on-site”, because their works are built “with the resources and techniques of the place, where the territory is always a particular and unique variable. The projects become an x-ray of the place, which speaks of the customs of the people, their history, their problems, and their needs”. Al Borde “pursues an architecture whose aesthetics are conscious of the energy expended in its construction. It is seemingly effortless, where the way materials are joined together is clear and logical. An architecture that is open to the active participation of the users in the design and construction process”. 

Al Borde has received major awards, including the Donghia Designer-in-Residence 2021-2022 from the Environmental Design Department - Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, the Lafarge Holcim Award Acknowledgment for Latin America 2014, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2013, the Schelling Architecture Prize 2012, the Bicentennial Medal for Cultural Merit from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage of Ecuador 2012. It was also selected as a finalist for Design of the Year 2015 at the Design Museum in London and was listed as one of the top 100 architecture firms in the world by ‘Domus’ magazine in 2019.

Al Borde's works have been presented in numerous exhibitions and its founding members have been guest lecturers, critics or guest speakers at universities or research institutes in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, including Columbia University in New York, USA; the Oregon University, USA; Tongji University in Shanghai, China; and the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris, France. Their works have been widely published and in 2020 the first monograph dedicated to them, Less is All, appeared from the Mexican publisher Arquine.

For all the information on the current and previous editions please refer to www.swissarchitecturalaward.com.

Fondazione Teatro dell’architettura

Based in Mendrisio, the Fondazione Teatro dell’architettura, chaired by Mario Botta and directed by Riccardo Blumer, promotes the Swiss Architectural Award. Since its seventh edition (2019-2020), the Foundation has taken over the legacy of the Swiss Foundation for Architecture (from 2007 to 2018) ensuring continuity. Thanks to the support of Charles Kleiber, then President of the Swiss Architecture Foundation, the award has acquired a new direction, reinforced by the involvement of the three Swiss schools of architecture (ETH Zurich, EPFL Lausanne and the Academy of Architecture of Università della Svizzera italiana), represented on the jury by their respective deans or directors.

Fondazione Teatro dell'architettura also aims to offer visibility to the new transdisciplinary interests that are increasingly intervening in the design process and redefining the social role of architecture. The complex issues facing contemporary society - the commitment to the environment, the availability of energy resources, drastic climate change and the new complex social realities - strongly condition the dynamics linked to the identity aspects that are recorded at a territorial level, so much so that new approaches and a new disciplinary sensibility are required in the field of architecture, urban studies and landscape design.