Marxe a+t was born in Galicia in 2023 as a natural evolution of Bivaque, the itinerant studio founded in 2014 by architects Natalia Alvaredo and Javier Rocamonde, which for nearly a decade moved between Mexico and Barcelona, weaving a transdisciplinary practice recognised in more than a dozen national and international competitions, among them Europan 15 and 16 and Nusos i Cruïlles (AMB). Joining that trajectory since Marxe’s founding is architect Aurora Gil Méndez, who brings to the team a perspective shaped between A Coruña and Rome.
Marxe a+t develops projects for the improvement of the habitat by bringing out the value of cultural and natural heritage. Its work moves with a trans-scalar outlook, attentive to the overlap between complementary realities: the rural and the urban, the public and the private, the productive and the reproductive. That attention translates into a practice centred on urban and territorial regeneration and on the rehabilitation of the built heritage, where each proposal reveals the potential for improvement and the latent values of what already exists, adjusting to its material and immaterial context.
Since its founding, the studio has won first prize in the competition for the rehabilitation of the heritage complex of Casa de Parga, in Meis, and second prize in the competition to plan the seafront of Pobra do Caramiñal. Its work has been selected for the exhibitions ‘Galicia, unha escola’, by the Higher Technical School of Architecture of the UDC, and ‘Nova Arquitectura Galega’, by the Official College of Architects of Galicia.
Marxe works with an extensive network of collaborators, with whom the studio builds, project by project, horizontal structures adapted to each commission.
Javier Rocamonde
Javier Rocamonde is an architect from ETSAC (UDC) and holds a PhD in Urbanism from ETSAB (UPC), awarded with distinction (sobresaliente cum laude), training he has complemented with advanced studies in architecture at UPC, territorial planning at USC, landscape architecture at UPC and rehabilitation at Escola Sert and the Fundación Laboral de la Construcción. He co-founded Bivaque in 2014 together with Natalia Alvaredo and, since 2023, co-founds Marxe, where his practice has been recognised in competitions such as Europan 15 and 16, ‘El futur de les infraestructures viàries. Nusos i cruïlles’, by the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, and the competition for the rehabilitation of the heritage complex of Casa de Parga, in Meis. His project to improve accessibility and lighting at Finca Rosequillo, in Villaescusa (Cantabria), was selected for the CSCAE Architecture Awards of 2024, the same recognition received in 2026 by another of his projects with Marxe a+t.
Alongside his professional practice, Rocamonde carries out teaching and research work at various universities and institutions, among them ETSAB, ESTAC and UIC. He has been an associate professor and teaching and research staff member of the Department of Urbanism and Territorial Planning at ETSAB (UPC). His research work has been carried out through competitive national and international projects, and has led him to take part in congresses and conferences across Europe and Latin America.
Natalia Alvaredo
Natalia Alvaredo is an architect from ETSAC (UDC), with an Official Master’s Degree in Urbanism from the same school and an Official Master’s Degree in Remote Sensing and GIS from UAB. Her career, developed between Europe and Latin America, combines the drafting of planning instruments, urban agendas and strategic plans with the development of GIS methodologies geared towards urban and territorial analysis, a crossing of scales and tools she has practised in teams such as the Barcelona Urban Ecology Agency and Barcelona Regional.
In 2014 she co-founded Bivaque together with Javier Rocamonde, a studio with which she was awarded prizes in more than a dozen national and international competitions, among them Europan 15 and 16. Since 2023 she co-founds Marxe a+t, where she continues to develop that urban and territorial outlook through the analysis of the territory.
Aurora Gil Méndez
Aurora Gil Méndez is an architect trained at the Universidade da Coruña, where she completed the Master’s Degree in Architecture, with a period of study at the Sapienza Università di Roma through the Erasmus programme. Before joining Marxe she worked as an architect at Hábitat Social, S. Galega, an experience that broadened her outlook on habitat from a social and community scale.
She has been part of Marxe a+t since its founding in 2023. She has a particular interest in natural building, bioclimatic architecture and participatory processes, as well as in exploring the role urban planning can play in the right to the city.