Inheritors of the very best of British brutalism tradition, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara (Grafton Architects) are known for constructions with a strong social component and a powerful structural imprint where enormous spans and unfaced reinforced concrete take on a central presence. This comes to the fore, for example, in their latest work of major importance, the UTEC building in Lima, completed in 2015. This year the Royal Institute of British Architects bestows recognition on the partnership’s entire trajectory – established in 1978 and including milestones like their joint curatorship of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2018 – with the most coveted among its honors: the Gold Medal.