External Reference

Awarded by New Italian Blood as the best Young Italian Architects of 2011, External Reference Architects is a multidisciplinary design firm that aims to break the boundaries among architecture, visual art, and digital fabrication for generating new spatial experiences. Interested in generating intensity nodes the office is currently involved in research and design in the fields of interior design, architecture, and landscape design. Based in Barcelona the office establishes work collaborations with international professionals coming from different fields as graphic design, art and production. Directed by Nacho Toribio, Carmelo Zappulla External Reference Architects offers a broad range of design strategies with the aim of pushing the boundaries towards new outcomes. Looking for the unexpected the office team works on external factors as client needs, budget limits, sustainability as driving forces for the design. Realized and under construction projects have been developed in Spain, Korea, Italy, UK, Germany, France and Russia. External Reference Architects won several prizes participating in international competition including first prize with the Spanish Pavilion's exhibition space, the ONU-Art Consensus exhibition, the project Le corti di Buenos Aires, Milano for the renovation of 22000 sqm buildings and developed the winning proposal for the Toulouse Aerospace Campus in collaboration with Foreign Office Architects. External Reference Architects' projects have been exhibited in the Venice's 12th International Architecture Exhibition Biennale and Eme3. Interested in the materialization of the projects the office team is constantly researching through lecturing and teaching at IED, Instituto Europeo di Design, Barcelona, ELISAVA and UIC, Universidad Internacional de Cataluña in Barcelona; NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milano and in collaboration with Welsh School of Architecture Cardiff University. Most of the relevant projects are published in several magazines including Il Sole 24 ore, Pasajes de Arquitectura, Metalocus, Via Construcción, Future, Disey Magazine, Magazine-La Vanguardia, Blueprint, Materia.