Dezeen Magazine

Watch Grafton Architects speak at the Royal Academy's 2018 annual architecture lecture

Grafton Architects founders Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara explained their theme for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 in the Royal Academy of Arts' annual architecture lecture.

Farrell and McNamara chose Freespace as the theme for this year's Venice Biennale, which they describe as "a generosity of spirit and a sense of humanity" in architecture.

This was the first lecture that the pair have given in the UK since the exhibition opened in May. In it, they give more details about exactly what Freespace is and how it features in their own architectural work.

Featured projects include the Universita Luigi Bocconi School of Economics in Milan, Italy, and the UTEC University in Lima, Peru, for which they won the first RIBA International Award.

Dezeen was media partner for the 28th instalment of the prestigious lecture series, which took place at the Royal Academy in London on 16 July 2018, as part of the programme for this year's Summer Exhibition.

The lecture was streamed from the new Benjamin West Lecture Theatre – created during David Chipperfield's renovation of the Royal Academy's Burlington Gardens building.

Previous speakers in the lecture series include Wang Shu, Bjarke Ingels, Peter Zumthor and Liz Diller. Last year the speaker was Balkrishna Doshi, who reflected on 70 years of pioneering architectural projects.