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Architecture is a profession
with many rules,

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some written, some not,

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some relevant and others not.

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As architects, we're
constantly gravitating

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between following these rules by the book

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or making a space for imagination --

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for experimentation.

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This is a difficult balance,

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especially through architecture,

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you're trying to challenge preconceptions
and push boundaries and innovate

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even if just using what we have around
and we overlook all the time.

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And this is what I've been doing
along with my team,

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Ensamble Studio,

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and from our very early works

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that happened in strict
historic contexts,

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like the city of Santiago de Compostela.

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Here we built the General Society
of Authors and Editors,

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a cultural building.

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And on top of all the regulations,

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we had to use stone by code,

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and our experience was limited,

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but we had incredible
references to learn from,

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some coming from the city itself

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or from nearby landscapes

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or other remote places

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that had impacted
our education as architects,

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and maybe you recognize here.

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But somehow the finished products
that industry made available

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for us as architects
to use in our buildings,

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seemed to have lost their soul.

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And so we decided to go
to the nearby quarries

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to better understand the process
that transforms a mountain

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into a perfectly square tile
that you buy from a supplier.

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And we were taken by the monumental
scale of the material,

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and the actions to extract it.

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Looking carefully,

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we noticed hundreds of irregular
blocks piling up everywhere.

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They are the leftovers
of an abstraction sequence:

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the ugly parts that nobody wants.

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But we wanted them.

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We were inspired.

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And it was a win-win situation

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where we could get this residual
material of great quality,

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doomed to be crushed,

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at a very low cost.

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Now, we had to convince our clients
that this was a good idea,

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but foremost, we had to come up
with a design process

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to reuse these randomly shaped rocks,

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and we had not done this before.

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Today everything would be much easier

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because we would go to the quarry

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with our smartphones
equipped with 3-D scans,

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and we would document each rock,

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turn that into a digital model --

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highly engineer the whole process.

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But more than a decade ago,

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we had to embrace uncertainty,

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and put on our boots, roll up our sleeves

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and move to the quarry
for a hands-on experience.

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And we also had to become the contractors

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because we failed at finding somebody
willing to share the risk with us.

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Now, luckily we convinced the quarry team
to help us build a few prototypes

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to resolve some of the technical details.

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And we agreed on a few mock-ups,

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but we got excited,

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and one stone led to another

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until we succeeded to build

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an 18-meter-long
by eight-meter-high structure

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that recycled all the amorphous
material of the quarry

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just supported by gravity --

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no mortar and no ties.

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Once built and tested,

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moving it to the final site
in the city center

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to unite it with the rest of the building,

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was a piece of cake,

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because by having isolated uncertainty

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and managed risk in the controlled
environment of the quarry,

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we were able to complete
the whole building in time and on budget,

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even if using nonconventional
means and methods.

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And I still get goosebumps

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when I see this big chunk
of the industrial landscape

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in the city,

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in the building,

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experienced by the visitors
and the neighbors.

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This building gave us quite
a few headaches,

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and so it could have well been
an exception in our work,

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but instead it started to inform
a modus operandi

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where every project
becomes this opportunity

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to test the limits of a discipline
we believe has to be urgently reimagined.

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So what you see here are four homes
that we have designed, built

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and inhabited.

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Four manifestos where
we are using the small scale

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to ask ourselves big questions.

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And we are trying to discover
the architectures

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that result from unconventional
applications of pretty mundane materials

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and technologies,

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like concrete in different forms
in the top row,

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or steel and foam in the bottom row.

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Take for instance
these precast concrete beams.

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You have probably seen them,

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building bridges, highways,
water channels --

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we found them on one of our visits
to a precast concrete factory.

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And they might not seem
especially homey or beautiful,

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but we decided to use them
to build our first house.

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And this was an incredible moment

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because we got to be architects as always,

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builders once more,

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and for the first time
we could be our own clients.

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So, here we are trying to figure out
how we can take these huge catalogue beams

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of about 20 tons each,

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and stack them progressively
around a courtyard space ...

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the heart of the house.

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And due to the dimensions
and their material quality,

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these big parts are the structure
that carry the loads to the ground,

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but they are much more than that.

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They are the swimming pool,

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they are the walls that divide
interior from exterior,

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they are the windows that frame the views,

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they are the finishes,

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they are the very spirit of this house.

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A house that is for us a laboratory,

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where we are testing how we can use
standard elements in nonstandard ways.

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And we are observing
that the results are intriguing.

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And we are learning by doing

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that prefabrication
can be much more than stacking boxes,

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or that heavy parts
can be airy and transparent.

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On top of designing
and building this house,

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we get invaluable feedback,

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sharing it with our family
and our friends,

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becuase this is our life

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and our work in progress.

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The lessons that we learn here
get translated into other projects

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and other programs

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and other skills as well,

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and they inspire new work.

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Here again we are looking
at very standard products:

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galvanized [tin slats]
that can be easily cut and screwed,

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insulating foams, cement boards

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or materials that you can find
hidden in partition walls

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and that we are exposing,

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and we are using them to build
a very lightweight construction system

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that can be built almost by anyone.

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And we are doing it ourselves
with our hands in our shop,

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and we are architects,

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we're not professional builders

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but we want to make sure it's possible.

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It's so nice that Antón
can move it with this hands

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and Javier can put it in a container,

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and we can ship it

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like you would ship your belongings
if you were moving abroad ...

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which is what we did five years ago.

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We moved our gravity center from Madrid

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and the house of the concrete
beams to Brookline.

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And we found the ugly duckling
of a very nice neighborhood:

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a one-story garage
and the only thing we could afford.

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But it was OK because we wanted
to transform it into a swan,

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installing on top
our just-delivered kit of parts,

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once more becoming the scientists
and the guinea pigs.

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So this is a house that uses
some of the cheapest

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and most normal materials
that you can find in the market

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that applies the ubiquitous
four-by-eight modulation

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that governs construction industry.

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And yet a different
organization of the spaces

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and a different assembly of the parts

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is able to transform
an economically built home

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into a luxurious space.

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Now we're dreaming

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and we're actively working
with developers,

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with builders,

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with communities

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to try to make this a reality
for many more homes

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and many more families.

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And you see, the world around us
is an infinite source of inspiration

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if we are curious enough
to see beneath the surface of things.

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Now I'm going to take you
to the other side of the moon:

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to the sublime landscape of Montana,

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where a few years ago we joined
Cathy and Peter Halstead

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to imagine Tippet Rise Art Center
on a 10,000-acre working ranch.

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When we first visited the site,

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we realized that all we knew
about what an art center is

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was absolutely pointless for that client,

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for that community,

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for that landscape.

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The kind of white-box-museum-type
had no fit here.

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So we decided to explode the center
into a constellation of fragments,

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of spaces spread across
the vast territory

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that would immerse the visitors
into the wilderness of this amazing place.

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So back in the office,

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we are thinking through making,

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using the land both as support
and as material,

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learning from its geological processes
of sedimentation, erosion,

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fragmentation, crystallization --

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explosion --

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to discover architectures
that are born from the land,

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that are visceral extensions
of the landscape

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like this bridge
that crosses [Moffit] Canyon,

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or this fountain ...

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like this space topping the hill ...

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or this theatre that brings to us
the space of the mountains

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and its sound.

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And in order to realize this idea,

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construction cannot be perfectly planned.

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We need to embrace the drastic weather
and the local craft.

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We need to control
just those aspects that are critical,

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like the structural, the thermal,

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the acoustical properties
embedded in the form,

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but otherwise, improvisation
is welcome and is provoked.

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The moment of construction
is still a moment of design

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and a moment of celebration

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where different hands, hearts, minds
come together to perform a final dance.

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The result then cannot be anticipated.

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It comes as a surprise.

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And we unwrap architecture
like you would unwrap a birthday gift.

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Architecture isn't covered,

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it's discovered.

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It's extracted from the guts
of the earth to build a shelter,

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one of the most basic human needs.

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Architecture, art, landscape,

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archaeology, geology, all made one.

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And by using the resources
at our disposal in radical ways,

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by making a space for experimentation,

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we are able to bring to light

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architectures that find the beauty
latent in the raw and imperfect things

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that surround us,

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that elevate them

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and let them speak their own language.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)