RCR Architects set up international digital platform to share knowledge

The Olot office of the three Catalan architects who this year won the internationally prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize are creating a digital platform to share knowledge around the world. Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta who make up RCR Architects define their new project as their “very own dream”. To make the platform possible, the architects have set up 'LAB·A', a creative laboratory to research space “from a disciplinary point of view.”

With its creation, LAB·A is this year organizing the annual architecture workshop held in Olot, the town in Girona province where the RCR Architects office is located. This year’s workshop is the 12th edition and has 92 places available, despite the avalanche of applications the architects have received since winning the prestigious international prize. The participants from 18 different countries, including Italy, France, India and Latin American countries, began the architecture workshop on Monday.

With associated initiatives and activities, a total of 131 people are taking part in the workshop until August 18, some 56% of whom are women. “We want to make them understand that they have to find out who they are and what their understanding of architecture is,” says Rafael Aranda, “and then they have to understand that it is possible to do this architecture in their countries of origin.”

'LAB·A', which stands for Laboratori Barberí, aims to become a digital platform for sharing knowledge on an international level through direct cooperation with universities all over the world, and with the aim of generating debate. According to the RCR Architects, 'LAB·A' is a project they have been thinking about for some time, but only now have they taken the step of formally turning it into an organization that will work alongside their private foundation,  'Bunka'. As the architects see it, the meeting point between 'Bunka' and 'LAB·A' is the summer workshop, in which the 92 participants will develop seven projects, five of which will be related to the management of architectural spaces, with the remaining two dealing with real case studies.