Tiago do Vale Arquitectos

It’s not completely wrong to say that there’s an informality to Tiago do Vale’s architecture.

There’s a refusal of sorts to schools, currents or movements -even (or especially) to the modern movement, at least in a rationalized way- a bit in the same vein as when Távora said that “style doesn’t matter: what matters is the relationship between what is built and life”.

This doesn’t mean that this practice’s design is shallow: quite the opposite, its design is supported by deeply critical, discerning and genuine answers to each circumstance, answers more focused on appropriation, sensibility and continuity with the built culture from which architecture emanates, avoiding acritical formal or conceptual limitations that impoverish the range of possibilities for the project. That’s where the cohesion of its body of work comes from.

In this sense, every project becomes a rehabilitation exercise: if there's a building there, its merits, history, constructive techniques, strengths and its physical and cultural contexts become the foundation for the most minute (but most transformative) intervention, in order to extend its timeline well into the future; if there's an empty space there, the void is rehabilitated by the same exact principles, aiming to achieve the same exact results.

What this practice really proposes, in the end, is to stop architecture from being a circularly self-referencing object, both in its design and its thinking, and to make it part, continuity and product of the encompassing culture where it is inscribed.

2022 Simon Architecture Prize, Nominated
2022 Loop Design Awards, Winner Best Small Architecture Firm Award, Winner Best Renovation Firm Award and Winner Design & Small Scale
2021 Loop Design Awards, Honorable Mention
2021 International Design Awards, Third Prize
2020 DNA Paris Design Awards, First Prize
2019 National Wood Architecture Award, Finalist
2019 Architecture Masterprize, Small Firm of the Year
2019 Baku International Architecture Award, First Prize and Honorable Mention
2019 Muse Design Awards, Platinum Award and Double Gold Award
2018 Architecture MasterPrize, Honorable Mention
2018 Blueprint Awards, First Prize
2018 International Architecture Awards, Third Prize
2018 Global Architecture & Design Awards, Honorable Mention
2018 Architizer A+Awards, Double First Prize
2018 International Design Awards, Third Prize
2017 Construir Awards, Finalist
2017 American Architecture Prize, First Prize
2017 COAG Architecture Awards, Finalist
2016 American Architecture Prize, Third Prize
2015 Architizer A+ Awards, First Prize
2015 National Wood Architecture Award, Selected
2014 Institute of Housing and Urban Renewal Award, First Honorable Mention
2014 ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards, First Prize