Carmen Torres, ultralocal architecture is universal
The founder of the studio Sarquella Torres has worked in Paris and Bangkok
BarcelonaThe architect Carmen Torres (Barcelona, 1986) –founder of the studio Sarquella Torres together with Pau Sarquella– does justice to the idea expressed by Josep Pla that in the ultra-local lies the universal. Specifically, Torres began with the international part: she started her studies at the Barcelona School of Architecture (Etsab), and continued her training at the ENSA-Paris Malaquais school. Thus, her professional career began in the French capital, as a collaborator in various studios on public equipment and housing projects. And from the French capital, Torres and Sarquella moved to Bangkok to work as professors in the International Program in Design and Architecture (INDA) at Chulalongkorn University.
The plan was to spend six months there, but in the end, they stayed for four years. The culmination of that academic experience was the construction of the Bang Nong Saeng kindergarten in the small village of Dum Yai, within a program to provide community and educational infrastructure to the country's disadvantaged rural communities. The existing space was 60 m², but thanks to their efforts, those of the school director, the university students, and the villagers, they managed to expand it to 380 m². The Asian adventure of Sarquella Torres is exceptional among Catalan architects, but it must be taken into account that for architects of her generation, one of the reasons for internationalizing was to seek job opportunities when the 2008 crisis was hitting the sector in the country very hard.
Perhaps because of this experience, the working methodology of the Sarquella Torres studio is based on exhaustive research so that their work dialogues with the environment and also with the social and collective memory of the place. They assure that, whether in Bangkok or Banyoles, where they currently have their studio, they tend to "question everything" in order to be able to take it "very seriously" afterward.
On the other hand, Carmen Torres's career has recently had another moment of international impact: she was one of the six curators of the past 2026 World Congress of Architecture in Barcelona, together with Pau Sarquella himself, Maria Bajet, Pau Giramé, Tomeu Ramis, and Mariona Benedito. And in the same academic and reflective vein, Torres has continued her pedagogical work at the Vallès School of Architecture. As could be seen at the World Congress, the profession of architects has changed a lot in a few decades. Torres and the colleagues of her generation have to pave their way in a very convulsive world. They assume the material rigors to face climate challenges, but this does not mean that they have succumbed to an overwhelming restraint. They can still afford to play, and a certain grace that, even though it arises from necessity, transcends it.
