Ibai Rigby

Ibai Rigby, trained as an architect and urban planner, is currently working as an editor for the newborn digital platform urbanNext.net. His work involves tracking down cutting edge architecture and urban practices at a global scale, with a particular interest on the African continent, aiming at building collective narratives for a new generation of digital native and multicultural professionals acting across nations. Along with the digital platform, this convergence of resources and information is generated and disseminated through the production of books as well as the organising of public exhibitions and events.

Previously, as Project Coordinator at the Aga Khan Trust for Culture Historic Cities programme, Ibai was based in Geneva, Switzerland. Most projects in which he was involved for the Historic Cities Programme are located in West Africa, the Middle East an Asia. His work implicated assisting and training the local teams, as well as supervising architecture preservation projects, newly designed buildings in Mali, Syria and India. His responsibilities included international and local staff team managements.

Ibai has developed organisational skills throughout the years, while coordinating the Aga Khan award of Architecture ceremonies in Doha, Qatar and Lisbon, Portugal, in 2013, as well as the Award exhibitions in Tunisia, Kosovo, France and South Africa. He was able to contribute to develop the professional network of the Award, acting as its representative, at different international architecture events such as the Venice Architecture Biennale, the UIA Congress, the World Architecture Festival, etc.

Alongside his professional work, Ibai has been a guest lecturer and critic at the Architectural Association Mittelmeerland Visiting Schools in Algiers (Algeria), Alexandria (Egypt) and Izmir (Turkey), at the Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning in Ithaca, at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Conservation Urban Design Studio in Paris, and at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona.

Ibai received his Architecture degree with honours from the Institut d’Architecture de l’Université de Genève and realised studies in Architecture and Urban Culture at the Metropolis Programme at the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona.