art-03.08.2026-05:36:46am

BIG SEE Everything Is Urgent

Everything Is Urgent

Dear Građevinsko – arhitektonski fakultet u Nišu team,

Architect and curator Selçuk Avcı speaks with Diego Tobalina González, Head of the Innovation and Design Unit at the Norman Foster Foundation, about urgency, curiosity, and working across scales, from Venice's rising water to a Droneport in Rwanda.

This edition also introduces Selections, our new series of curated project selections, alongside the award-winning Kindergarten Gotha, an innovation in full-body porcelain stoneware and an early reflection on the questions currently shaping our thinking at BIG SEE.

Diego Tobalina González in conversation with Selçuk Avcı

Diego Tobalina González reflects on architecture’s relevance at a moment when climate, technology and social change all seem to demand an immediate response.

Their conversation moves through urgency, innovation, education and interdisciplinary collaboration, asking how architects can remain thoughtful orchestrators rather than simply reacting to speed, spectacle and new tools.

Watch the Interview →

A New Way to Read the Magazine

Selections is a series in BIG SEE Magazine that gathers a handful of projects around one shared theme, less a full survey, more a close reading. Each edition looks at a specific typology, material or idea through the projects that best represent it, offering a focused way to see what is shaping architecture, interior and product design right now.

Explore All Selections →

A Kindergarten That Puts the Child First

Kindergarten Gotha by herrschmidt architekten* BDA is built on the principle of a "prepared environment," where rooms guide rather than direct. Warm wood, acoustically calm ceilings, and custom fixtures scaled to children combine architecture, education and health into a single, quietly considered space, recognised with the BIG SEE Interior Design Award 2026 Grand Prix.

Explore the Project →

Submissions for BIG SEE Awards 2027 are not yet open, but interest registration is already open, so you can be among the first to know when entries begin.
Register Your Interest →

Colour That Runs All the Way Through

Pastelli, a full-body porcelain stoneware system by Appiani, a brand of Gruppo Bardelli, combines chromatic depth with high technical performance, including frost, stain, and impact resistance, and is suitable for floors and walls, indoors and out, from high-traffic spaces to wellness and pool areas. Companies that present their innovations at a trade show keep them featured on the BIG SEE platform year-round.

Explore Innovations →

What Is Still Becoming?

Before we name where BIG SEE goes next, we want to sit with a question: what does it mean for a building, or a city, or a practice, to stay unfinished, in the best sense? Not incomplete, but still open to being adapted, questioned and reread. This is an early reflection, a first signal toward BIG SEE's 2027 theme.

Read the Reflection →

Answer the Survey →

These are the ideas and projects we have been exploring lately, from urgent questions to new directions still taking shape.

Have a thought, question or project of your own? Simply reply to this email. We read every message.

Warm regards,
BIG SEE Team

Zavod Big • BIG SEE
Vidovdanska 2-4, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
www.bigsee.eu