ABOUT US
An architecture practice built on design quality, energy efficiency and sustainability
CARLOS NIETO
Architect and founding partner of ACRE Arquitectura
Carlos Nieto, founding partner of ACRE Arquitectura, is an Architect and Building Engineer, trained at the Technical University of Madrid, Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio and Horsens Polytechnic in Denmark.
Alongside his work as CEO of ACRE, he teaches on courses, speaks at conferences and writes for the specialist press. He holds a Research Proficiency Certificate from the UPM and is preparing his doctoral thesis.
From the beginning his buildings have carried a strong design component together with eco-efficiency and sustainability, and he built that model of sustainable architecture into ACRE Arquitectura.
The clearest expression of it is the 80-home building Arroyo Bodonal, an international benchmark for sustainability and energy efficiency, for which he received the first LEED PLATINUM certification outside the USA and the third worldwide.
VALUES AND PHILOSOPHY
Sustainable architecture
For more than twenty years we have worked to build in values that let us design and deliver sustainable architecture with the highest quality, excellence, reliability, rigour and care for detail.
Our mission
ACRE Arquitectura was founded with the mission of creating spaces where design and care for the environment reinforce each other, offering our clients the best solutions.
We design spaces to live, work, learn and enjoy that improve the lives of the people who use them while reducing their environmental impact and improving their energy performance.
Our philosophy
Green architecture, also known as sustainable architecture, sets out to reduce the impact of construction on the planet. Designing a green building means working on many fronts at once: orientation and solar gain, reducing demand through building form and insulation, renewable systems such as aerothermal and geothermal energy, recycled materials, locally sourced supply, full management of construction waste, responsible water use, rainwater infiltration, native low-water planting, support for sustainable ways of getting around, and many other measures that we build into our projects.
Our values
Innovation, design, quality and excellence are the foundations of our architecture. We apply them with the utmost rigour and reliability to every one of our buildings and to every architectural and urban project.
ABOUT US
ACRE Arquitectura
The story of ACRE Arquitectura began in 2003, when its founder Carlos Nieto set out to create a practice around a model of sustainable architecture in which design, value, talent and innovation were the basis of every project.
All of it at a time when energy efficiency and green architecture were still unknown in Spanish architectural firms.
That commitment has earned the practice a series of awards for its green buildings. The most significant was LEED Platinum, the first residential building to achieve it outside the USA and the third in the world, in 2016 — the highest international distinction in building, reserved for the most energy-efficient and sustainable buildings.
ACRE Arquitectura has evolved over the years, adding new roles and services and becoming an end-to-end manager of property developments.
From the start we have designed spaces at every scale — to live in, to work in, to learn in, to enjoy — with the aim of resolving the practical problem well, and always with close attention to the environment around us.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
of our architecture practice
2020 — LEED Silver. Industrial building and corporate offices, Alcobendas
2017 — Alfonso Vázquez Fraile Award, Spanish National Association of Housing Cooperatives: best cooperative residential building in Spain
2016 — LEED Platinum
2015 — ASPRIMA Award: best energy-efficiency initiative in the Spanish property sector
2015 — Best geothermal installation in the Community of Madrid
2009 — First prize, rural accommodation competition, Parque del Cíjara (Regional Government of Extremadura)
2004 — First prize, competition for the remodelling and extension of the Casa de Salud, Majadahonda (Madrid)
Get in touch with our practice
Tell us about your project and we will be glad to get back to you and make it happen.