Benjamín Iborra and Carlos Dimas like to look at architecture from the inside. They explain that “the materials, light, proportions, temperature, sound, and the way you move through a space have a huge influence on how you experience it.” Inspired by Zumthor and the power of creating atmospheres, they believe that the ultimate goal of the profession is “to make people’s lives a little better through space.”
The founders of the Mesura architecture firm share their contemporary vision of the profession.
What question do you start your projects with?
Let's start by asking ourselveswhat we're looking at and what we're taking for granted.
For us, every project is a different line of research . We follow a work process that adapts to the status, the location, the circumstances, and the people who commission us.
That’s why the first question isn’t usually “What are we going to do?”, but rather “Why does it have to be this way?”. Sometimes the answer ends up being to build something completely new; other times, it’s to reuse what already exists, as in the case of Aesop; and sometimes, it’s even to decide not to do anything at all, as in the case of Vasto Gallery.
You advocate for a systematic approach to creativity. Why do you think it’s still difficult to champion the technical side of this profession?
For a long time, architecture has been explained in terms of its most visible aspects: the idea, the image, or the gesture. We ourselves were trained in a rather iconic vision, almost without budget, without constraints, and without too many people who could offer their opinions on it.
When we started working, we realized that the rules had changed. And that forced us to understand thatpracticing architecture also means working within limits.
That’s where the idea of “Mesura” comes in: doing things on a custom basis, in line with the actual conditions of the project. The budget, the materials, the climate, the rules and regulations, the client, and the location aren’t necessarily problems that need to be overcome. Often, they’re precisely what makes it possible for a good idea to emerge.
That's why we don't see creativity as something whimsical. There's an intuitive aspect to it, but there's also a lot of knowledge behind it: researching, experimenting, making mistakes, building, understanding how things work, and knowing how far you can push them.
Technique does not limit creativity; often, it is what allows an intuition to become architecture.
How do you strike a balance between the identity of the place and a global perspective?
Every place has its own character. We work in many different places, and that has forced us to develop a way of looking at things that always starts with the context: understanding the climate, the culture, the available resources, and why the local architecture has historically arrived at certain solutions.
We are interested in vernacular architecture because it contains a wealth of accumulated knowledge .
An international perspective allows us to compare, learn, and draw on other examples, but we don’t want to arrive at a place with a preconceived solution. We’re more interested in discovering what we can learn from that place and then reinterpreting it from a contemporary perspective.
In interdisciplinary “ framework ,” what is the greatest “ challenge ” when translating the language of architecture into that of other disciplines?
The main " challenge " is not to think that our field is the center of everything. We were born into a much more collaborative era, and in our studio we work alongside people from very different backgrounds: architecture, research, communications, technology, and technical fields.
For that partnership to work, you have to learn to listen and also to compromise. One of the most interesting things about working this way is that a discipline can ask you questions you would never have asked yourself from an architectural perspective.
What do projects gain from focusing on processes, rather than just results?
For us, the process is almost as important as the result. We don’t want architecture to be explained solely through a final photograph, because that leaves out a huge part of the project: where a decision came from, what was researched, what was tested, what mistakes were made, and what ended up changing.
Every project helps us learn. What interests us about the process is that it allows us to change our approach along the way. If we view each project as a different line of research , what we discover in one project can become a tool for the next one.
Of all the interior design projects you've worked on, which one do you think best captures the essence of Mesura?
Aesop Diagonal, because it brings together many of our obsessions: the “ research ” of a place, reuse, local materials, sustainability understood through coherence and common sense, artisanal “ work ,” and, above all, the idea that “ project ” arises from the conditions it encounters.
We used stone from Montjuïc that had previously been part of buildings in Barcelona and had been salvaged. This allowed us to work with a material that was 100 percent local and reused, but it also meant that the material itself helped shape the design.
We wanted the project not to try to appear sustainable, but rather to be consistent with a particular approach to architecture.
Vasto Gallery represents another very important part of Mesura. It is a project that champions something that we architects find very difficult: deciding to do nothing. The client wanted the space to remain their home, and we understood that we shouldn’t alter the columns or impose a new architectural style.
Sometimes design means taking action. And other times, design means knowing when not to take action.
