What was the most difficult issue about working within this building type or the most unexpected challenge that may have influenced new thought in your project?

Speed of construction was the main challenge of the project. Particulary the design of the furnishing system required a lot of efforts, to reach an efficient and easy construction.

Did this project expand or evolve your role as an architect in any way? In general, do you feel that the role of the architect is changing on current projects?

We improved the tools that allow us to be on budget and on time. This is important because it’s very common that people do not believe that is possible to build a nice building taking care about budget an schedules. The ethic of the architect role should include these considerations

How is your building possible today in a way that it may not have been before and how have trends in technology and society inspired new thought and solutions?

Automatic cutting systems provide speed and quality. That’s what new technologies are bringing to us.

In the context of this project, how is your office and design process being influenced by current trends in academic curricula and incoming young architects? In turn, how are current projects and processes guiding the ongoing reformulation and development of academic curricula?

We consider it’s really important to use the tools that the industry understand. That technologies changes and we must be aware of them. Young architects keep that knowledge alive.

Architype Review thanks Manuel Recortado for his interview and for contributing to this collection of Architype Dialogue.