This year Sergi Sauras, a student from La Salle-URL, has been awarded one of these scholarships of Fundación Arquia and will spend 6 months in the Aires Mateus studio in Lisbon (Portugal). Aires Mateus is a Portuguese architecture studio founded by brothers Manuel Rocha de Aires Mateus and Francisco Aires Mateus in 1988 in Lisbon and it has an important portfolio of successful buildings, most of which have been constructed in Portugal.
Sergi Sauras will present his final degree project at La Salle-URL in November, having graduated as architect Summa Cum Laude in the USA (Savannah College of Art and Design) and worked in the Danish Studio of the Bjarke Ingels Group. This year, together with a fellow student, he has represented the university at the Llum BCN festival with a lighting project which won the Lamp Lighting 2017 award. He has also set up "ELLS" (www.ells.studio/@ells.studio), architecture studio with two other students.
The aim of these scholarships is to enable students to complement the knowledge and skills acquired on degree programmes through their practical application in work placements, and to contribute to the bridging the gap between academia and the professional sector by introducing the candidates to renown architecture studios. The scholarship programme has been in place since the year 2000 and has awarded 354 scholarships to architectures from architecture schools all over Spain to date. The Fundación Arquia provides a grant of 7.000 € (national destinations) and 9.000 € (foreign destinations). Furthermore, it covers travel expenses and helps with the travel insurance and corresponding national insurance payments.