Carmen Bistuer, a graduate of our School(ARQ'18 and MUA'19), works at Foster + Partners and was selected and invited to participate in an important workshop at the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR). In this workshop, possible solutions were studied to rebuild the areas of Ukraine that were affected by the destruction of dams during the war.
This invitation came into your hands thanks to your project Final de degree program, FairCity at IFEMAdirected by Julio Clúa, which was selected for the Archiprix 2021 edition.
Carmen Bistuer working with her team in the search for solutions for the case presented during the international seminar in Rotterdam.
"It has been a very interesting and enriching experience," says Carmen Bistuer. "What would you do if you had to refund life to a war-torn area? This is the question behind the international seminar in which, together with the best architects of my generation worldwide, we investigated reconstruction strategies in one of the areas of Ukraine affected by the war," adds the architect.
On June 6, 2023, the Kakhovka dam was bombed and destroyed, causing the flooding of 600 square kilometers along the Dnipro River. "During the workshop, we learned and understood the impact of this event from political representatives of the affected area and international experts in flooding and landscape, economic and social regeneration," explains Carmen Bistuer.
"This week's result from research forms a broad base of work on which to articulate the policies that will serve to rebuild Ukraine once peace is achieved," says the architect.
Every two years Archiprix selects the best graduation projects among 1,800 architecture schools worldwide. The classified are invited to participate in a seminar of research on a topic of topicality and international relevance. In 2019, Carmen Bistuer's FairCity at IFEMA was selected for the Archiprix 2021 edition. Due to the exceptional status caused by COVID-19 this event had to be postponed, taking place in November and December 2023 as part of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR).
