November 21, 2017

An innovative college campus building in Lima, Peru, is the inaugural winner of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) International Prize for the world’s best new building. Ireland’s Grafton Architects created the University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) building, a vertical, concrete structure in the city’s lovely Barranco district overlooking the Pacific Ocean. RIBA, a professional body for the advancement of architecture, was founded in London, England, in 1834.

The UTEC building in Lima, Peru, won the inaugural RIBA International Prize for world’s best new building. Credit: © Christian Vinces, Shutterstock

The building’s stark reinforced concrete plates stand in line with the rolling green cliffs of Barranco, housing an all-in-one campus of classrooms, exhibition spaces, laboratories, offices, restaurants, theaters, and interior gardens that absorb the area’s temperate climate. Air circulates throughout the open spaces of the puzzle-piece building, which is flooded with natural light.

An exceptional example of civil architecture, UTEC’s 10 floors form a “modern-day Machu Picchu” with a large A-shaped section leaning toward the busy Quebrada de Armendáriz avenue. (Machu Picchu is an Inca archaeological site in Peru.) The backside staggers above nearby ravines and terraces. The building, also dubbed a “man-made cliff,” is built at an angle on fast-sloping ground, reflecting Lima’s unique geography and existing architecture. The city is a bustling mix of old and new, filling a dramatic space between the gray expanse of sea and the green foothills of the Andes Mountains.

Grafton Architects, based in Dublin, worked with Lima’s Shell Arquitectos on the $100 million project, which was completed in 2015.