About this Event
The Jencks Foundation and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) are delighted to announce that Anna Puigjaner has been named the recipient of the 2026 RIBA Charles Jencks Award.
Presented annually, the award recognises an individual or practice that has made an outstanding contribution to both the theory and practice of architecture.
Join us for this special evening celebrating Anna Puigjaner's work and achievements, featuring the 2026 Jencks Award Lecture and a live conversation with the award recipient.
About Anna Puigjaner:
Anna Puigjaner is an architect and researcher who co-founded the practice MAIO in Barcelona and is Professor of Architecture and Care at ETH Zurich. Her theoretical and built work with MAIO has reframed the question of how we live together collectively, revealing that the structures that organise our spaces and their functions are historically contingent rather than fixed. Her work has repositioned housing as a question of collective infrastructure, care, and social organisation, opening up new ways of thinking about domesticity and urban life.
Puigjaner's theoretical position was first developed through Kitchenless City in 2016 and has since evolved to focus on how architecture can reorganise the infrastructures of everyday life. Her current work examines how housing, shared resources, and civic space might support more diverse and equitable ways of living together. Projects developed with MAIO test these ideas in practice, including 110 Rooms, which reimagines collective housing through adaptable domestic arrangements, and 40 Social Housing Units, which explores flexibility, shared space, and changing household structures.
Her work has influenced a new generation of architects, researchers, and educators. Through her hybrid practice, Puigjaner has forged a rare synthesis between theory and building; these are not only theories tested through architecture, but architecture tested through theory as well. By maintaining both a theoretical and a built practice, Puigjaner has found ways to explore and realise new models of collective infrastructure and care.
Event Programme
5:30pm - 6:00pm
Arrival and registration
6:00pm - 6:20pm
Welcome and citation by Adrian Dobson and Lily Jencks
6:20pm - 7:15pm
RIBA Charles Jencks Award 2026 Lecture
Anna Puigjaner
7:15pm - 8:00pm
In Conversation: Anna Puigjaner
Including audience Q&A, hosted by Thomas Aquilina
8:00pm - 8:30pm
Reception and close
Photo credit: José Hevia
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Event venue & nearby stays
Architectural Association, 36 Bedford Square, London, United Kingdom
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