The Lisbon Architecture Triennale announced as the winner of the fifth edition of the Début Award the Indian office ReSa Architects. The office is known for its collective approach to spatial practice, treating architecture as a process of rewriting social and bodily relations. In previous editions, the award recognized the work Vão (Brazil, 2022), Bonell+Dòriga (Spain, 2019), Umwelt (Chile, 2016) and Jimenez Lai, from Bureau Spectacular (USA, 2013).
The announcement was made on October 4, during the opening festivities of the Triennale, which in this edition awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award to the architect, Yasmeen Lari from Pakistan, the first person from the global south to receive the honor. Lari joins Marina Tabassum (2022 award winner), Denise Scott-Brown (2019), the duo Lacaton & Vassal (2016), Kenneth Frampton (2013), Álvaro Siza (2010), and Vittorio Gregotti (2007).
Hailing from India, ReSa Architects explores architecture as a collective social process, through built projects and artistic research that test, perform, and discuss the margins of the discipline. For this duo of women architects, to think in terms of "situations" rather than fixed "sites" opens up new relationships between image, text, and body, expanding architecture's capacity for social subversion.
Spaces are made within bodies, within neck rotations — looking. In this process of space making we are also rewriting the bodies which live these spaces. The agency found within the bodies creates the possibility for a subversion of the structures of economic systems that sustain them. — ReSa Architects
The list of finalists included Bangkok Tokyo Architecture (Thailand), Palma (Mexico), ReSa Architects (India), Robida Collective (Italy), and TEN (Switzerland). The 2025 edition received 75 eligible applications from around the world. In addition to the five finalists, the shortlist included: Atelier Local (Portugal), Avneesh Tiwari (India), Balsa Crosetto Piazzi (Argentina), Banga Coletivo (Angola), BeAr Arquitectos (Spain), Estúdio Flume (Brazil), Exutoire (Vietnam), Indalo World (South Africa), JQTS (Portugal), Juan Campanini – Josefina Sposito (Argentina), Juliana Godoy (Brazil), kera (Georgia), NUA arquitectures (Spain), Parabase(Switzerland), and RC Architects (India).
The Début and Achievement Award jury is composed of architects Inês Lobo, Lígia Nobre, Samia Henni, Sandi Hilal, and Yuma Shinohara. Promoting transformative architecture at all stages of practice, the three Lisbon Triennale Millennium bcp Awards — Achievement, Début, and Universities — recognize bold thinking, innovative research, and meaningful architectural contributions from academia to established practitioners.
