HPMP London winner team interview

HPMP London winner team interview

We have talked with Juan Verdaguer, Ismael Preti and Carlos Brizuela, winners of our Hyde Park Music Pavilion (HPMP) London international architecture competition.

1.- What made you want to participate in our Hyde Park Music Pavilion (HPMP) London?

We are a team called NONAME and our goal is to debate and project. Lately, we have participated in some contests, this one is the third competition from Arquideas we participate in. We were awarded special prize at Bay Book House and honourable mention in Viewpoint of the Fjords, so this time we tried to make the most of this competition in order to outdone ourselves.

Besides, these competitions allow you to show an idea at its best, without the limitations provided by regulations. Competitions always mean an excellent opportunity to deepen in the process of developing an idea.

2.- Briefly explain your proposal that won First Prize.  Would you like it to become a reality?

Our proposal is based on an understanding of the competition and of the connection between architecture and environment.

We were looking for a solid concept that strongly connected with landscape. Mainly, a concept that showed the connection between music, architecture and nature.

We understood the pavilion had to possess a sensorial and experimental character and had to be able to generate a unique atmosphere, so we translated the concept into a musical sky.

We would love to build it. It would be really important to materialize this idea and also to offer the opportunity to people to experience this connection between landscape and art for a short period of time. That is why we have kept working on this idea even after the competition, building models and writing information about the construction.

3.- What is your opinion on architectural education?  How could it be improved in relation to the professional field?

We believe architectural education depends a lot on the individual. The same university can produce good or bad architects, at least in our countries. Everything depends on the individual. What is really a problem is what we call “titulitis” and too much rhetoric. I mean, to be specialized in 5 fields or having 2 masters degrees don’t make you a good architect; and a bad project will always be a bad project, even if its narrative is good.

Concerning educational programmes, we believe these are outdated. Some aspects of projecting are deeply rooted in last century theories, which do not prove to be necessarily useful nowadays. Architecture has always been socially demanded; you don’t really find this idea applied to teaching methodology.

Concerning the professional field, we believe these competitions are a good opportunity to take off, even more when there is a possibility of materializing the project. Universities should promote and broadcast this kind of practices.

4.- How are you going to approach your future careers?

Our aim is to be a multidisciplinary team engaged with society, improving cities and human life quality. Mainly we would like to achieve this by participating in competitions, which we find is the more transparent way of researching, projecting and intervening on a city. Nowadays we are scattered across several different countries. This situation allows us to widen our field of intervention and means that we are continuously learning.

5.- And finally, tell us about your experience with Arquideas.

We are very happy with the experience we had in the last Arquideas’ competitions.

They have served us to rethink our conventionalisms, and also to develop new ideas in a more creative, limitless manner. To rethink architecture, starting from criticizing ourselves as well as concepts and styles.

Arquideas is always a wise choice if you’re looking for experiencing and developing proposals without architectural or artistic limitations.

Thank you.