Grafton Architects: The Latest Architecture and News

Selected from 69 submissions from 10 countries, six international firms were shortlisted for the design competition of the future Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation at the University of Arkansas.

Architects around the world are constantly striving to explore new ways of using materials that are both more environmentally friendly, and can create impactful designs that demonstrate new abilities of creativity. For 2020 Pritzker Prize winners Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects, these ideas are at the forefront of every project they design, but became especially meaningful when they visited their completed “carved mountain” project, University Campus UTEC, in Lima, Peru for the first time.

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Yesterday Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, co-founders of Grafton Architects, received the 2020 Pritzker Prize. The first women to be jointly recognized for the award also received the Royal Gold Medal 2020 from RIBA earlier this year.

Pritzker Prize 2020 Laureates, Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara are known for their powerful yet delicate approaches. In this exclusive video for ArchDaily, Martha Thorne, executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design, shares some of the reasons why Grafton Architects has won the Pritzker Prize 2020.

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“When you read Love in the Time of Cholera you come to realize the magic realism of South America.” Yvonne Farrell, Shelley McNamara and I were in a corner of the Barbican Centre’s sprawling, shallow atrium talking about the subject of their most recent accolade, the Royal Institute of British Architects inaugural International Prize, awarded that previous evening. That same night the two Irish architects, who founded their practice in Dublin in the 1970s, also delivered a lecture on the Universidad de Ingeniería and Tecnologia (UTEC)—their “modern-day Machu Picchu” in Lima—to a packed audience in London’s Portland Place.

With more than 40 years of professional experience, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, partners and co-founders of Dublin-based Grafton Architects, are the first women to be jointly awarded the architecture’s highest honor, the Pritzker Prize. In addition to a very welcoming breath of hope towards greater female representation in the field, the selection also cast light over an equally urgent theme in the profession: recognizing architecture practice as a collective effort.

This year, architecture’s highest honor, the Pritzker Prize, has been granted to Grafton Architects' Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Dublin, Ireland. The 2020 Laureates, who are both educators and architects, are known for their powerful yet delicate approaches. Their contextual and modern interventions are very attentive to history, demonstrating high levels of sensitivity and craftsmanship.

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Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara founded Grafton Architects in 1978, after they met each other at the School of Architecture at University College Dublin. The practice, named after the street where the duo's first office was located, has been awarded this year’s prestigious 2020 Pritzker Award. Grafton's built work reflects the continued search of architectural excellence, in buildings ranging from small scale housing to large public volumes.

Dublin-based Grafton Architects have been announced as the winners of the RIBA 2020 Royal Gold Medal, the UK’s highest honor for architecture. Recognizing the practice’s significant global contribution to architecture, the award is approved personally by Her Majesty The Queen. RIBA acknowledged that the people-centered practice has achieved global recognition and is known especially for its exemplary education buildings.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects has announced the launch of the RIBA International Awards 2020 to recognize architecture outside of the United Kingdom. Now open for entries, the awards are open to any qualified architect in the world for a building outside of the UK, of any size and budget. The biennial awards celebrate buildings that exemplify design innovation, embrace sustainable technologies and deliver meaningful social impact.

Dublin is one of the world’s most beloved cities. The Irish capital welcomes over 5.6 million tourists every year from around the world, seeking out the city’s red brick rows, cobblestone streets, and lush green parklands.

Dublin has good reason for being on any architect’s travel list. Modest Georgian tenements, sensitively altered by local architects, stand alongside major civil and public works by some of the world’s most renowned international firms, while warm art nouveau and art deco cafes sit alongside the sleek, modern headquarters of the world’s largest tech firms.

The Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, upon recommendation from 2018 curators Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects, have announced the jury for the forthcoming Venice Biennale.

The jury will be responsible for awarding the Golden Lion for Best National Participation, the Golden Lion for Best Participant in the International Exhibition FREESPACE, and the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant in the International Exhibition FREESPACE. They will also have the opportunity to award one special mention to National Participations and two special mentions to the participants in the International Exhibition.

At a press conference earlier today, curators of the 2018 Venice Biennale Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects revealed more information about this year's upcoming event, to be hosted from May 26th to November 25th. Building on the thematic concept the duo presented last June—“Freespace”—the event will feature a main exhibition in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini and the Arsenale featuring work by 71 participants, while two Special Sections will feature a total of 29 further participants. Elsewhere, 65 national pavilions will present contributions from around the world, including 7 first-time participants: Antigua & Barbuda, Saudi Arabia, Guatemala, Lebanon, Mongolia, Pakistan and the Holy See.

Yvonne Farrell and Shelly McNamara, directors of Grafton Architects, have been recognized along with three other individuals as winners of the 2017 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medals. The award, presented by the University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, recognizes “the exemplary contributions of recipients to the endeavors in which Jefferson excelled and held in high regard”, including Law, Citizen Leadership, Global Innovation, and Architecture.

“As founding partners of Grafton Architects, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara have built an international award-winning practice that has made substantial contributions to culture and education and have embodied their values in profound works of architecture,” said Ila Berman, dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture.