Liucija Šimkūnaitė, architect 

After her undergraduate studies in architecture at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University in Lithuania and Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden, Liucija gained practical experience at architecture firms in Toronto, Cyprus and Melbourne. She then obtained her master's degree in architecture at TU Eindhoven and joined cepezed. Her graduation topic - a modular, prefabricated housing construction system - ties in with cepezed's construction box approach. Although, unlike cepezed, Liucija had a special target group in mind: the system construction was intended to give voice to indigenous populations in Canada.


Material is still far too often taken for granted by architects, according to Liucija. She does not want to use more of it than is strictly necessary. cepezed introduced the 'unit of measurement' iq/kg because of the same approach, i.e. a design that is as intelligent as possible with as little material as possible. Also because of her preference for flexible, reusable and detachable architecture, Liucija is at home with cepezed. In addition, cepezed's 'honest' design style, in which all parts are visible, appeals to her.


Currently she is working on the health campus for the HvA (Hogeschool van Amsterdam). On one of her previous project, Plus Ultra Utrecht, she mentions the sustainability ambitions: the detachability, the building has a loosenability index (LI) of at least 60 percent.


Of all the aspects related to architecture, Liucija is particularly interested in the extent to which a building can affect your state of mind: it can provide comfort, but it can also intimidate or deter. She believes it is important for architects to take this into account and always puts the user experience itself first.