Nasios Varnavas
Urban Radicals
Architect, ADC Expert
https://urbanradicals.com/
Cyprus
Urban Radicals designs objects, rooms, architectures and landscapes.
UR started out in 2019 as a duo between architects Nasios Varnavas and Era Savvides, and is now an expansive network between friends, colleagues and expert collaborators. Driven by a desire to build equitable public spaces, the practice works through a distinct and multi-disciplinary network of different players, all experts in their fields, forming a larger ‘WE’, a system, to solve problems across contexts and scales. We are driven by a desire to build joyful, rich and meaningful spaces for cities and their people.
UR was selected to curate and design the Cyprus Pavilion National Participation at the 17th Architecture Biennale in Venice 2021, and has been named as one of the Best New Architecture Practices for 2021 by Archdaily, as well as awarded as one of six emerging Young Architects in Residence at the Architecture Foundation London.
The studio has worked for notable clients which include City of London Corporation’s Business Improvement Districts, Cyprus Architects Association and Ministry of Culture, European Cultural Centre, Goethe-Institut, La Biennale di Venezia, London Festival of Architecture, New London Architecture, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London Borough of Newham and Poliform.
UR has been awarded a material research grant, from AKTII/ Tyrens Group engineers, to develop a net-zero carbon brick suitable for construction, which featured as a public pavilion at the ECC 2023 biennial exhibition at the Giardini della Marinaressa in Venice, running in parallel to the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale. The project has been exhibited at London Design Museum’s How To Build A Sustainable Home, and has been longlisted for a Dezeen Sustainability award.
More recently UR, has won the LFA 20th anniversary competition, with the project Street Assemblies for the Square Mile, a series of public works which enable dialogue and bring people together to discuss and re-imagine the future of London.
Additional to practice, UR teaches architectural design at UCL for the MArch Architecture RIBA II programme and at Westminster for the BA(Hons)Architecture RIBA I programme.
UR is based between Nicosia and London.