STAR strategies + architecture
STAR was founded by Beatriz Ramo (1979, Spain) in Rotterdam in 2006. STAR is a practice dealing with architecture in all its forms. STAR is interested in all topics directly or indirectly related to architecture, working on projects and doing research in the fields of architecture, urbanism, and landscape design. STAR takes responsibility for all the phases of the process. Several awards in International Competitions for housing projects, public buildings, and urban planning in France, the Netherlands, China, Iceland, Lebanon, Norway, and Spain gained STAR international recognition.
Since its creation, housing has been one of STAR’s main fields of research and experimentation. STAR has explored the issue of housing in depth —particularly in the Paris Region since 2012— through multiple projects, ranging from theoretical research to experimentation at “scale 1:1”, from the adaptation of housing to the changing lifestyles of current households, the optimisation of “servant” spaces or the scalability of apartments. Examples are diverse: from “The Cabanon” in Rotterdam (a 7m² apartment) to “START” in Ivry-sur-Seine developing more than 23,000m² of innovative, flexible, affordable, and resilient housing, as well as common spaces. STAR continued developing its research on housing between 2012 and 2016 as a member of the Scientific Council of the AIGP (Atelier International du Grand Paris), where START created the concept of ‘Co-Residence’.
The work of STAR has been featured in the general press worldwide such as The New York Times, de Volkskrant, Corriere della sera, El Pais, El Mundo, Libération, Humanité, Vogue, Elle, etc.; in architecture publications such as Casabella, AAfiles, Arch+, Le Moniteur, Domus, Abitare, Architectural Review, A+U, Deutsche Bauzeitung, etc. and exhibited at centres of renown such as the NAi in Rotterdam, Storefront Gallery in New York, the Pavillon de l’Arsenal in Paris or the Ludwig Forum in Aachen.
Beatriz Ramo has been invited as guest critic for different European architecture schools and institutions such as the Berlage Institute, the AHO in Oslo, Chalmers School in Gothenburg, the ENSA in Versailles, etc., and she has been jury for several architecture competitions in France (Reinventer Paris), Switzerland, The Netherlands, and Norway, where she was the chairman of the jury for the Europan 12 competition.
Beatriz Ramo has lectured internationally on architecture in general and the work of STAR in particular, at the Pavillon de l’Arsenal in Paris, the National Art Gallery in Vilnius, the SCA in Buenos Aires, the CCPE in Rosario, the Architecture Club in Kiev, Chalmers School in Gothenburg, the Elisava School in Barcelona, the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw, or at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.
STAR remains continuously active in research and critical writings (e.g., O’Mighty Green, a satire criticizing the opportunistic confusion between Sustainability and Greenwashing in architecture. O’Mighty Green has been translated into 13 languages and published in over 30 countries), and the agency regularly collaborates with MONU Magazine on Urbanism, where Beatriz Ramo is managing-contributing editor. Since 2007, STAR has been academically active in several schools and institutions in the Netherlands as an extension to the office’s study projects through courses and research ateliers on architecture typology, urbanism, interior architecture, and criticism.
In 2012 Beatriz Ramo was nominated for the Architecture discipline in the “Young Talents in Architecture” organized by the “Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative”. In 2024 Beatriz receive the French national prize ARVHA for Women in Architecture in the category “Oeuvre Originale” for her experimental collective housing project “START-Ivry” in Greater Paris.