Awarded by New Italian Blood as the best Young Italian Architects of 2011, External Reference is an architectural office involved in design and research in the fields of interior design, architecture, and landscape design.
More of a professional net than an office External Reference is constantly questioning conventional configurations and solutions in order to engage, speculate and innovate.
External Reference notices that there is a big connection between evolution of architecture projects and business models and believes in sustainable development, balance between architecture, innovative strategy and business
improvement.
Directed by Carmelo Zappulla External Reference offers a broad range of design strategies with the aim of pushing the boundaries towards new outcomes.
Looking for the unexpected the office team works on external factors as client needs, budget limits, sustainability as driving forces for the design.
Realized and under construction projects have been developed in Spain, Korea, Italy, UK, Germany, France and Russia.
External Reference won several prizes participating in international competition including first prize for the Spanish Pavilion's exhibition space, the ONU-Art Consensus exhibition, the project Le corti di Buenos Aires, Milano and developed the winning proposal for the Toulouse Aerospace Campus in
collaboration with Foreign Office Architects.
External Reference’s projects have been exhibited in the Venice’s 12th International Architecture Exhibition Biennale and Eme3.
Interested in the materialization of the projects the office team is constantly researching through lecturing and teaching at IED, Instituto Europeo di Design, Barcelona, ELISAVA and UIC, Universidad Internacional de Cataluña in Barcelona; NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milano and in collaboration with Welsh School of Architecture Cardiff University.
Most of the relevant projects are published in several magazines including Il Sole 24 ore, Pasajes de Arquitectura, Metalocus, Via Construcción, Future, Diseny Magazine, Magazine-La Vanguardia, Blueprint, Materia.