Last Wednesday, IAAC – Advanced Architecture Barcelona hosted Alison Brooks, Founder and Creative Director of Alison Brooks Architects, as part of its Lecture Series 2025/26. In her keynote An Architecture of Nature, Brooks explored the role of architecture as a bridge between cultural memory and the future — blending inclusivity, sculptural form and sustainable design.

Throughout her lecture, Brooks reflected on how buildings can embody both individual and collective narratives, using form and materiality to express identity and belonging. Her projects — from the Cohen Quadrangle at Oxford University to the Cadence Tower at King’s Cross and The Smile for the London Design Festival — illustrate an architecture that is both poetic and pragmatic, deeply rooted in place while open to experimentation.

One of the UK’s most awarded and internationally recognised architects, Brooks is the only practitioner to have received all three of the country’s most prestigious awards for completed works: the RIBA Stirling Prize, the Manser Medal, and the Stephen Lawrence Prize. Her practice is currently developing major projects in London, Taiwan, Oslo, and Toronto, continuing to expand the dialogue between culture, form and the natural environment.

The session was organised in collaboration with AHEC – American Hardwood Export Council, the global voice of the U.S. hardwood industry, with the support of Labóh (Press & Communications) and BARQ – International Architecture Film Festival Barcelona.

By engaging with themes of material innovation, environmental responsibility and architectural expression, Alison Brooks offered IAAC’s students and guests a vision of design that connects human experience with the broader ecologies that sustain it — an architecture not only of nature, but for nature.

If you’re interested in exploring sustainable materials, advanced construction and environmental design, discover IAAC’s full range of master’s programmes here.