Colectivo C733's 36x36 Wins Obel Award

While we don't know what other projects were candidates under serious consideration for this sixth cycle of the Obel Award, it seems that Colectivo C733's 36x36 undertaking is such a strong fit with the Architectures with focus that no other project would have come close. Announced in June, when the award's anonymous scouting committee began looking for projects, the theme developed by jury* chair Kjetil Trædal Thorsen wanted projects that, among other things, “questioned the role of the architect and the profession as a whole,” “explored radical new ways of sharing and giving agency to all stakeholders,” and “looked to address collective design and process with other disciplines and be co-creative in a non-hierarchical way.” With five lead architects plus thirty other architects and a team of consultants working together to tackle dozens of typologically and geographically diverse projects in an unheard of timeframe, 36x36 is a perfect fit for the 2024 Obel Award.

The 36 projects were part of an effort by Mexico's Secretariat for Agrarian, Land, and Urban Development (SEDATU) to revitalize vulnerable urban and rural areas across the country. To tackle the design and realization of numerous buildings in a compressed timeframe, architects Gabriela Carrillo, Carlos Facio, José Amozurrutia, Eric Valdez, and Israel Espin formed Colectivo C733 in 2019. Thorsen's jury statement explains the collective's name: “Synthesizing on the ideas of Uruguayan engineer Eladio Dieste, the group endeavored to design projects and public spaces that are Logical (7), Efficient (3), and Economical (3) – also in a Cosmic way (C).”

Dieste's influence on the structures they designed for the various communities can be found in the collective's development of a modular, flexible and low-cost building system that could work for the various project types: sports, health and education facilities, markets, community centers, public spaces, and cultural buildings. Some examples of the long span structures used for sports, education, and public plazas are pictured here, though it's clear that the modular system did not result in repetition: each building is formally unique, responsive to the local communities and natural contexts.

For the 2024 focus - Architectures with - the jury wishes to emphasize the urgency of rethinking conventional mindsets and ways of practice in collaboratively and collectively responding to the ever growing vulnerability of people and planet. We can no longer think of simply designing ‘for’ communities and stakeholders, but must do so ‘with’ them. 

[…] 

By designing together, ‘with’ a constantly fluctuating roster of stakeholders, and while utilizing shared skill sets and resources, this architectural meta-collective has been able to compress processes that might previously have taken years into just a few months, usually unheard of within today's industry standards. 

[…] 

The commitment and dedication to community, and the informed, responsive and rapid design that Colectivo C733 have produced, is a hopeful approach that the jury believe can be learned from and adapted around the world.

World-Architects first learned about Colectivo C733 a year ago, when Gabriela Carrillo was named the winner of RIBA's 2023 RA Dorfman Award. That citation included buildings designed by Carrillo's own studio but also some C733 projects, including the striking Ecoparque Bacalar, pictured above. Carrillo formed her eponymous studio in 2019, the same year Colectivo C733 formed. Of the other members, Carlos Facio and José Amozurrutia formed TO in 2015; Eric Valdez, a master's candidate in architectural design, founded labg, a company dedicated to lightweight structures, and Israel Espin established his own eponymous studio in 2018. All five core Colectivo C733 architects attended the Faculty of Architecture at UNAM.

• Kjetil Trædal Thorsen (Chair), Snøhetta
• Xu Tiantian, DnA_Design and Architecture

• Dr. Wilhelm Vossenkuhl, Professor at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
• Sumayya Vally, Counterspace
• Louis Becker, Henning Larsen Architects
• Aric Chen, Nieuwe Instituut
• Nathalie de Vries, MVRDV

• 2023/Adaptation: Living Breakwaters by SCAPE Studio
• 2022/Emissions: Seratech’s solution for zero-emissions concrete
• 2021/Cities: The 15-minute city as defined by Professor Carlos Moreno
• 2020/Mending: Anandaloy by Anna Heringer
• 2019/Well-being: Art Biotop Water Garden by Junya Ishigami & Associates