Dezeen School Shows: a portable structure made from natural materials that disperses native seed types from horseback is among projects by IE University students.

Also featured is a hospital interior scheme informed by greenhouses and a concept for a flood-adaptive interior layer that can be added to homes in flood-risk areas.

IE University

Institution: IE University
School: IE School of Architecture and Design
Course: Master in Interior Design
Tutor: Andrea Caruso

School statement:

"IE School of Architecture and Design, part of IE University, brings together architecture, design, fashion and related creative disciplines across its Bachelor's and Master's programs.

"With an international outlook, the school offers a diverse educational environment that connects creative disciplines with the wider cultural, technological and business landscape.

"The school's master's portfolio spans architecture, interior design, immersive experiences, real estate development and business for architecture and design.

"Across these fields, programs combine creative thinking with practical knowledge, encouraging students to respond to evolving professional and societal challenges.

"The Master in Interior Design takes a holistic approach to spatial design, combining design development with sustainability, craft, technology, business and user experience.

"Based in Madrid, the ten-month program encourages students to consider how interiors influence wellbeing, behaviour, identity and everyday life.

"Students work through practical projects and industry-informed briefs, developing solutions that respond to real contexts and client needs.

"Across the school, IE emphasises learning by doing, interdisciplinary collaboration and engagement with professionals.

"This approach allows students to develop not only creative and technical capabilities, but also the strategic and entrepreneurial mindset needed to lead within contemporary architecture and design."

Healing the Ruin: Medicinal Planting and Hydrological Systems at the Renwick Smallpox Hospital by Nyah Nassif

"Healing the Ruin reimagines the abandoned Renwick Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island as a living hydrological system, reactivating the building's original gravity-fed water infrastructure to cultivate seven medicinal and toxic plants through misting and rain-harvesting.

"Drawing on Derrida's notion of the pharmakon (substances that both heal and harm) and on hauntology, this proposal lets decay and cure coexist within the same structure rather than erasing the ruin."

Student: Nyah Nassif
Tutor: Andrea Muniáin

Territories of Care: Regenerating Lake San Pablo by Isabel Dorn

"Territories of Care confronts the looming ecological collapse of Lake San Pablo in Otavalo, Ecuador.

"Built from local bahareque and typha thatch, a family of modular structures threads along the shoreline, water-treatment plants, chinampas, drying racks, fish farms and floating algae platforms, which purify the lake while producing food, framing gastronomy and craft as tools of regeneration."

Student: Isabel Dorn
Tutor: Fernando Pino

Edible Commons: Spatial Systems for Collective Kitchens by Arianna Castro

"Edible Commons investigates the ollas comunes, the self-organised collective kitchens of Pachacamac on Lima's periphery, treating food access as a spatial rather than purely social issue.

"Its 'Scaffold Commons' is a scalable, modular system built from low-cost, reused and local materials, working across three levels (Adaptation, Co-creation, and Fabrication) to help communities improve cooking, storage and gathering conditions."

Student: Arianna Castro
Tutor: Jerónimo van Schendel

Above La Paz by Vasco Amado

"Above La Paz proposes a new typology of care on the rooftop of Hospital La Paz's oncology department in Madrid, addressing needs that clinical environments rarely meet.

"Drawing on the greenhouse as an archetype, it develops a modular timber system of four spaces (care, connection, threshold, intimacy) with a living tree nursery that uses daylight and seasonal rhythm to support patient wellbeing."

Student: Vasco Amado
Tutor: Paula Montoya

Third House: A New Music and Dance Residency & School for Migrant Minors by Lila Gaffney

"Third House transforms the Pavillon du Lac, a vacant 1863 pavilion in Marseille's Parc Borély, into a residential music and dance school for unaccompanied migrant minors awaiting minority trials and placement.

"A modular construction system inserts sleeping units, practice rooms, and performance spaces into the historic building, turning an unavoidable period of waiting into one of belonging."

Student: Lila Gaffney
Tutor: Fernando Pino

Reimagining Passive Waiting in Dubai International Airport by Aishwarya Geetharani

"This project reimagines the draining experience of waiting at Dubai International Airport Terminal 3, taking the jet bridge, the one space every passenger passes through, as its site.

"Drawing on Emirati architectural traditions, three modular configurations each cultivate a distinct state, Solitude (I), Resonance (V), and Reverie (X), using calibrated light, sound, smell and touch to give travellers more agency over how they wait."

Student: Aishwarya Geetharani
Tutor: Jerónimo van Schendel

Between Threads: How Can Fragmented Textile Practices Rebuild Community in Lucre? by Francesca Torres

"Between Threads addresses the fragmentation of textile practices in Lucre, Cusco, once home to Peru's first modern textile factory, where centralised production collapsed, but weaving endures, dispersed across households.

"Instead of introducing new activity, the project embeds a lightweight spatial system in the domestic threshold, community-built from local eucalyptus and rope, that lets homes work as connected spaces for production, learning and community life."

Student: Francesca Torres
Tutor: Paula Montoya

The Evolutionary Frequency: Suturing Soundscapes at Escudo de Veraguas Island by Ismela Marie Ruiz

"Escudo de Veraguas, a protected Panamanian island and one of the Caribbean's most biodiverse ecosystems, was closed by the government in 2024 after ecological violations, illegal construction, overfishing and noise pollution that displaced its Indigenous Ngöbe-Buglé community.

"The thesis asks how the Ngöbe-Buglé can guard the island's recovery through sound, proposing demountable tensegrity speaker structures for reefs, mangroves and forest that broadcast restorative soundscapes while combining ecological monitoring and community ritual."

Student: Ismela Marie Ruiz
Tutor: Andrea Muniáin

Life in Plastic: The Undesigned Interior by Camila Chahin

"In flood-prone Honduras, where storms like Mitch, Eta and Iota recur every few years, water is a permanent condition of domestic life rather than an accident.

"Instead of rebuilding after each flood, the project adds a flood-adaptive interior layer to the existing home, reimagining familiar furniture (beds, wardrobes, tables, refrigerators) in washable, buoyant plastic so households can adapt in place and keep the right to stay."

Student: Camila Chahin
Tutors: Andrea Muniáin

Territory Becomes Object Becomes Territory Again: The Gaucho as a Landscape Infrastructure by Carolina Estelles

"The project reimagines the gaucho as an agent of ecological repair in Argentina's Pampa Deprimida, along the Salado River.

"A nomadic, biodegradable module, built from local materials (willow branches, acacia thorns, reed fibre and cow bone) and seeded with native species, is carried on horseback and dispersed across the basin by cattle, regenerating degraded soil and wetland over decades."

Student: Carolina Estelles
Tutors: Andrea Muniáin

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and IE University. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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