Architecture studio Barclay & Crousse has won this year's Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize for its fragmented concrete university building in rural northern Peru.
Edificio E by the Lima-based practice ? led by Sandra Barclay and Jean Pierre Crousse ? was recognised as the best project in the Americas completed between January 2016 and February 2017 by the award jury.
The wood-textured concrete university building is located at the Universidad de Piura campus, 1,000 kilometres north of the Peruvian capital.

Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize 2018 jury chair Ricky Burdet commended Barclay & Crousse for its approach to the site's arid conditions, which involved fracturing a square-shaped plan to create crevices that form comfortable working environments for students. "The jury recognised how the deceptive simplicity and modesty of Edificio E conceals and reveals a building of unexpected complexity, intensity and richness," said Burdett in a statement.
"Responding to the harshness of the sun and extreme dry heat of the savannah landscape of northern Peru, the design creates a dense inner world of unexpected softness and openness shrouded by porous concrete screens."

Edificio E was constructed in response to the university's growing student population, after a public grant helped to enrol disadvantaged students from rural areas.
The team separated the building programme into 11 individual wood-textured concrete volumes. These comprise a mix of lecture ha...