Sandra Barclay
Principal, Barclay & Crousse Architecture, Peru
Sandra Barclay co-founded Barclay & Crousse Architecture with Jean Pierre Crousse in Paris in 1994. The firm has been based in Lima, Peru, since 2006. The studio manages a wide range of programs on a transcontinental basis, leading a design laboratory that explores the bonds between landscape, climate, and architecture.
Barclay & Crousse’s work challenges common notions about technology, usage, and well-being that, from specific conditions of developing countries, can inform and be pertinent in a global context. Barclay & Crousse was awarded the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize by IIT Chicago (2018), the Oscar Niemeyer Prize (2016), the Peruvian National Prize of Architecture – Hexágono de Oro (2014 & 2018), and the Latin America Prize (2013), given by the International Committee of Architectural Critics (CICA). The firm also received international honors at the 20th Pan-American Biennale of Quito (2016), the 4th Ibero American Design Biennale (2004), and the 14th Buenos Aires Biennale (2013). Their lecture building for the University of Piura was exhibited at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2018). Barclay & Crousse were curators of the Peruvian Pavilion at the 15th Venice Biennale (2016), which obtained the Special Mention of the Jury.
Sandra Barclay studied architecture at Universidad Ricardo Palma (URP) in Lima and Ecole d’Architecture de Paris-Bellville, France and obtained a Master in Territory degree in Territory & Landscape from Universidad Diego Portales (UDP), Chile.
She is a foreign member of the French Académie d’Architecture and Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. She currently teaches at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. She is recipient of the Norman R Foster Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University (2019). She received the 2018 Women in Architecture Award from the London-based Architects’ Journal and Architectural Review, as well as a fellowship from the Fulbright Foundation (2000).
Monocle Radio: Tall Stories Interview with Sandra Barclay
Sandra Barclay, Latin America Jury Chair for the Holcim Foundation Awards 2025 joins Monocle Radio to discuss how architecture can transform lives, no matter the size of the space.
Listen as she shares how her career began – and how resourcefulness, tradition, and social responsibility shape her impactful designs. It’s important to listen to the place and understand the context of any project.
Podcast - Connecting people to place - Barclay & Crousse
Many countries in the developing South seek pathways to a sustainable future. Peru-based architecture firm Barclay & Crousse offers a prism on what this looks like, when it is anchored to the specifics of people, climate and place.