Flores & Prats stood out at this year's Venice Architecture Biennale, showing a full-scale mockup of its Sala Beckett theatre and a tiny woodland chapel. As the event comes to a close, the studio founders speak to Dezeen about how they treat every project as an experiment.
Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats founded their eponymous studio in Barcelona over two decades ago, after meeting at the office of Spanish architects and then-partners Enric Miralles and Carme Pinós.
Since then the pair have built up a portfolio that combines rehabilitating old buildings with creating new public spaces, from transforming an old flour windmill in Mallorca into an exhibition centre, to establishing new public plazas in Barcelona.
Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats have a portfolio that combines rehabilitating old buildings with creating new public spaces. All photography is by Adrià GoulaTheir aim from the start, said Flores, has been to participate "in the discussions the city opens up". "From the beginning of the office, we had these interests in rehabilitation and in participating in public work for public clients," he explained.
Dilapidated factory became Sala Beckett theatre
Their latest project encapsulates both of these aims. Sala Beckett is a community theatre housed inside a rehabilitated factory.
Flores and Prats won the commission precisely because, unlike some of their competitors, they felt that bringing the dilapidated old structure back to lif...