We transform ideas into spatial experiences.
Our architecture thrives by redefining the discipline’s boundaries
Barcelona and Dubai, two perspectives towards innovation in design
Designing multidisciplinary spaces that transform presence into experience
If the tools that we need don’t exist, we build them
Next October 3rd, Carmelo Zappulla, CEO & Head of Design at External Reference, takes part in ModaHub, the event organised by FashionLAB at Casa CUPRA Raval Gallery in Barcelona. From 12:30h to 13:30h, he delivers the talk "Spaces That Build Brand," addressing how physical space shapes brand identity beyond product display, a line the studio has developed across a number of experiential retail projects.
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In an interview with AD Spain, Carmelo Zappulla, founder of External Reference, reflects on how to reconcile spectacle and environmental responsibility in contemporary architecture. For Zappulla, technology should not distance a project from nature but serve as a way back to it, a principle the studio applies both to materials and to the full experience of a space. This outlook is backed by an in-house research department that develops tools linked to artificial intelligence and spatial analysis, with particular attention to neuroarchitecture as a science applied to perception.
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Onada Terrace Suites, designed by External Reference at W Barcelona, bring together a defined material and spatial language across the terrace areas, developed as a standalone design commission within the hotel rather than an extension of the wider renovation scope.
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VAS is a pair of independent vessels designed by Carmelo Zappulla for External Reference, conceived as a study in contrast rather than as a single unified object. Each piece pairs two opposing textures, materials and processes, and the two vessels are shown side by side rather than nested, stacked or joined, so the tension between them stays visible instead of being resolved into one form. The result is less an object than a dialogue between two ways of making.
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