It has been announced by the College of Architecture of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago that the winner of the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) – awarded every two years to the finest works of architecture carried out in the Americas – is Edificio E at the campus of the University of Piura (Peru), designed by the Lima-based practice headed by Sandra Barclay and Jean-Pierre Crousse. It is a pavilion that enlarges a preexisting building with the express objective of encouraging informal encounters among members of the student body, as well as of creating the conditions that lead to knowledge exchange. All the while taking into account the Piura climate (sunny, warm, and dry throughout the year) and applying an austere but powerful language – with touches of brutalism – based on the use of reinforced concrete.