Plasma Studio, a London-based firm, has won the 2002 BD/Corus Young Architect of the Year Award (YAYA). Plasma’s two principals are Eva Castro and Holger Kehne.

The award required the submission of a 13-page portfolio in which as many (or as few) projects as desired could be included—built, unbuilt, or under way. The only other requirement was that the entrants all be less than 35 years of age. The YAYA's jury was chaired by Richard Feilden and included Zaha Hadid, Mohsen Mostafavi, and Spela Videcnik, a member of last year’s winning firm, Oman and Videcnik [RECORD, December 2001].

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Castro said that working in London offered their firm, and others like it, a “good place to project from, but very difficult to develop” within, since the city’s established density offers little room for new construction. Most young firms in London subsist on renovations and restorations. The team hope that their growing success will allow them to expand their practice across Europe, and even in the U.S.

Among the projects that won them the award was a renovation of a silversmith’s workshop, in which they added an upward-snaking platform made from industrial steel grating, playing with the natural light supplied by the skylight without obscuring it. They also refurbished a musicians’ home, where they added a single wall that mutates to become storage, a mirror, a window, a wardrobe, or stairs. The rooms that this wall delineates also serve multiple functions. One of the rooms is a music room with soundproof walls that also acts as a dressing room. Both of these projects are located within London, as are all of the firm’s built projects. All of them are also refurbishments of existing buildings.

Since the YAYA, Plasma won fifth place in a competition for an ocean museum in Germany on the Baltic Sea. The firm competed against a group that included Coop Himmelb(l)au and other large European firms, signaling that perhaps the YAYA is just the start of its success.

Sinan Schwarting