External
Reference

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

Last news

14 October 2026

VAS | Barcelona Design Week 2026

On 23 and 24 October, VAS will be on view as part of Underground BDW, within the 21st edition of Barcelona Design Week. VAS is a pair of vases made from reused cork waste and ceramic, developed in collaboration with Amorim Cork and Código Materia. A CNC-milled cork exterior meets a 3D-printed ceramic interior: warm and cool, porous and polished, craft and technology, set side by side as two independent pieces in dialogue. The project revisits the traditional Mediterranean vessel from a contemporary perspective, where function and symbolism coexist.

15 September 2026

Carmelo Zappulla at ModaHub: how spaces build brand

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.

27 July 2026

Carmelo Zappulla talks to AD about ethics, aesthetics, and technology in architecture

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.