gon is an architecture office headed by Gonzalo Pardo. His practice focuses on the research and development of multi-scale projects whose common denominator is a ludic, experimental, critical, and optimistic point of view of contemporaneity. Its interests focus on the creative processes of architectural design and construction, but also on the role that mediation and communication play in architecture as fundamental vehicles for transforming the world into a more sustainable, dignified, and free place. Gonzalo Pardo graduated as an architect from ETSAM and holds a PhD cum laude since 2016. His doctoral thesis “Body and House. Towards the contemporary domestic space since the transformations of the kitchen and the bathroom in the West” was also awarded the Extraordinary Prize of Doctoral Thesis 2016-2017, and an honorable mention at the XI Contest of the Thesis Contest of Arquia Foundation. Associate Professor in the Department of Architectural Projects at ESTAM, since 2007 he teaches at different universities and institutions covering different subjects related to the process of architectural design. Deputy Commissioner of the Spanish pavilion at the 16th Venice Biennial, he has won 41 national and international awards since 2000, including the first prize for the renovation of the AZCA block in Madrid in 2007; the second prizes in the international skyscraper competitions in New York and Velux in Denmark in 2007; COAM prize in 2004 for the curatorial cycle Paréntesis, and Runner-Up price in Europan 14 competition at Barcelona site.

Torben Eskerod is educated from Aalborg University (1980-86) and has studied at Aarhus School of Architecture and Fatamorgana School of Photography in Copenhagen (1988-91). Eskerod’s projects find common ground in his interest for contemplation and spirituality. He is especially known for his portraits in series like Equivalence (1995),Cassadaga (2000), Register - Life and Death Masks (2001), Friends and Strangers (2006) andCampo Verano (2008). His approach to the spiritual potentials for photography is further explored in the series Marselis (2012) and Can Lis (2013). Eskerod’s work has been published in the books Ansigter / Faces (Ministry of Culture’s photographic bookprice, Forlaget Rhodos, 1997), Register (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, 2001),Campo Verano (Kehrer Verlag, 2008) and Marselis (Kehrer Verlag, 2014). His architectural photographs and portraits have been published widely in several different projects like Statens Museum for Kunst (Arkitektens Forlag, 1998), Vita (University of California Press, 2005), The Club, (Rönnells, 2008), Will to Live (Princeton University Press, 2009), Frederik VIIIs palæ (Aristo, 2010), Kunst på Borgen, (Permild & Rosengreen, 2013) and Anton Rosen (Forlaget Vandkunsten, 2013). Eskerod is also photo editor at Daylight & Architecture Magazine published by Velux. Eskerod has exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Museum of Modern Art in Moskow, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Overgaden Institut for samtidskunst in Copenhagen, Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Peter Lav Gallery in Copenhagen and Yossi Milo Gallery in New York. He has received several prices and grants and is represented in a wide range of private and public collections like the National Portrait Gallery in London, The Museum of Photography Brandts in Odense, The National Museum of Photography, Denmark, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Portland Art Museum, Oregon. Torben Eskerod is represented by Peter Lav Gallery, Copenhagen. For a detailed bio on selected exhibitions and publications click here

dontDIY is an architecture and design studio founded in 2012 in Sofia by Svetoslav Michev, Stefan Minkov and Hristo Stankushev. Antonina Ilieva joined the partnership in late 2014. Over the first five years of the studio’s development, dontDIY has accumulated a considerable portfolio of realized interior design projects. dontDIY won first prize in the 2012 Passive House International Design Competition, and third prize in the competition to design the interior of Bulgarian National Television’s Studio 5, also in 2012. Other notable accolades for the studio’s projects are the 2017 Dibla Shop/Exhibition Area Award and the 2015 Velux Prize. dontDIY was the curator of the seventh edition of One Architecture Week festival in 2014. Our projects have been featured in a number of international publications such as A10, Bravacasa, Abitare, Frame, dezeen. Both architectural and interior design to us are a way to situate people in the world of objects, systems and concepts both larger and smaller than themselves. Our project work is a reflection on phenomena and processes in the environment we inhabit. Our focus is to observe, to discuss with each other, and to understand these processes, then to try to extract the positive and the specific. In this way, we hope, our projects are a constructive commentary to the present that we project back into the environment. Predominant topics in our work are: historicity of spaces and design-objects and its place in the life of contemporary people (worldwide and in our country); ways to manifest modernity in design and architecture; plants and the built environment; visualization of processes – of building, of dwelling, of work, of interaction.