INCOGA talks is a new space created to share experiences and analyse the latest trends with other professionals in the sector. In our first episode, we talk to Jorge Vázquez from Dous de Vinte, a leading architecture studio in A Coruña with whom we have just completed our second joint project: the exclusive comprehensive renovation and refurbishment of a single-family home. Welcome to INCOGA talks #01!
Why did you choose architecture as a profession?
The truth is that ever since I was little. My father was a quantity surveyor and had an architecture studio with other partners. I was always hanging around there, wandering the corridors of the office. You soak up the process, you see people working and, well, in the end, seeing my father every day interacting with people on site, talking on the phone, sometimes accompanying him to a site, you always pick something up.
What do you like most about your job?
The design process, receiving each commission as a challenge to be developed. But also, afterwards, turning that theoretical work into reality, into how it is built, how every construction detail is resolved, to try to make it turn out the way you thought it would, or the way the clients want it to be. All that work, it's not just you, you collaborate with other professionals, with the construction crew, and ultimately, you are ultimately responsible for ensuring that the whole process comes to fruition.
What common themes can we find in your work?
We always try to make layouts flexible over time, so that they can be adapted beyond the moment when you finish the project, because everyone's life changes, the way we work changes. Then, we try to pay close attention to the construction details, the good construction resolution of the project, because, in the end, things can be very beautiful, but if you start to have problems with water ingress, or other issues, then it becomes a failure. So yes, we pay a lot of attention to those specific details, to how to efficiently improve the home in terms of thermal improvements or things that go a little beyond the simple requirements of today's standards.
How do you usually approach residential projects?
Working in the residential sector, in the private sphere, is very different from working as a developer. Private clients are clients who put all their hopes and a lot of money into this type of project. So, let's say you end up being infected by their energy, their enthusiasm. You often start out with a relationship with people you don't know and end up having an intimate relationship with them because of the number of hours you spend together, the problems they bring to you, their needs, their concerns... In the end, you have to know how they live, how they work, or how they relate to the world in order to be able to respond to the needs of their future home.
What do customers demand nowadays?
With the access they have to so much information, they usually come to projects or meetings fairly well informed about what is commonly done nowadays. They have lots of images they have seen of things they like. Often, these are mixtures that have no common thread, and we have to guide them through that process. We try to discern what might suit them and what might not. And clients are increasingly demanding. I'm not saying that there weren't demanding clients before, because there were, but today's architects are forced to go into great detail and be very attentive to people.
What has your experience of working with INCOGA been like?
We have already completed a couple of projects with INCOGA, followed by some partial collaboration on other projects, and the truth is that we have felt quite comfortable working with them at the studio.
I think they are a construction company that is very attentive to the needs and demands of architects, to how they want things to turn out and whether they need to be changed, or even to contribute their knowledge, which has always been well received. In addition, the specialised work, in which they have experience, always helps us to resolve issues. I must also say that all of our clients have been happy with the final result.
The projects we have done with them involve certain rather unusual details: flush skirting boards, frameless doors, microcement; well, things that require attention to detail, not just done any old way, and I think they have responded well and managed to resolve them correctly.
The last project we worked on together, which we are currently working on, had certain details that needed to be taken care of and that not just any professional could do; it had to be done by highly qualified people. Well, textured paints, microcements, a certain search for woods that would match each other because they were used in different areas of the house. Outside, there were floors and certain pieces of furniture made of polished concrete, where you can see the grain, which also required the right professionals for the job. Well, I think it has been a home with well-resolved details that have been satisfactorily executed.
How has architecture evolved from your beginnings to today?
As for the work of architecture, I believe it has been the same and will continue to be the same. Doing things well, designing sensibly, thinking about the location and trying to solve each problem individually rather than generically, so that it is not all copy and paste, so that each project has its own particular stamp.
It is also true that regulations have evolved since 2010, with successive regulatory changes in terms of minimum technical requirements, forcing architecture to adapt. You have the challenge of how to achieve what you were doing before in a new way, providing solutions to all of this. Well, with the enormous insulation requirements we have today, the number of installations in homes and the emergence of new, more processed or sustainable materials, you have to combine them with more traditional construction methods.
What do you think will be the challenges for architecture in the medium/long term?
There is a lot of talk about it now, and we are starting to see it. Sometimes you get a reel, a post about artificial intelligence programmes that solve your housing problems. Well, those tools may help you do something, but in the end, human labour has to be behind the whole process. There are things in the design of spaces, things you want to achieve, that I think will be impossible for artificial intelligence to solve. But I do think it will have to adapt a little to certain things and include some of these tools in the process, which will probably make the work, in a way, even more efficient in some processes.
