Igor Bragado

We recently produced the installation HAVE A NICE DAY, created by the architecture studio Common Accounts, currently on display at the Musée Cantonal de Design et d’Arts Appliqués Contemporains - MUDAC, in Lausanne, Switzerland. The work features a suspended mesh structure, fixed to the ceiling by steel cables and supported by iron rods coated with PVC and silver thermal insulation. Its modular design allows for simplified assembly and disassembly, making the structure adaptable to different spatial configurations. To integrate the audiovisual components, the programming was developed in collaboration with programmer João Ferreira, ensuring the synchronization of the systems and their responsiveness to movement. It was a challenging project in which we explored the relationship between structure and technology. @igorbragado @milesgertler @commonaccounts @mudaclausanne @wasteeee___

Probably-the-most-bizarre-and-intense-last-two-months-of-my-life photo dump. 2,3. Starting with The King of Spain visiting my IE Design Studio class and his bodyguard making sure I knew he did a background check on me. 4. Giving a lecture of Common Accounts’ work at a Funeral Fair yes a Funeral Fair. 5. A story about our DLMBL house was the second most read thing in El Pais newspaper and my mom didn’t tell her friends cause there’s too much skin (some follow me on instagram so hola!). 6. Transatlantic travel felt like time travel. Visiting @corkingallery 7. Visiting our cabin at Northern Ontario and flexing, nothing bizarre about that, just flexing. 8. Reuniting with my dearest @milesgertler after two years. 9. And mounting our first ever installation in Spain, very near my beloved hometown, with the help of my dad, which felt extra special.

Common Accounts has designed the exhibition environment for Things To Come by Danish artist Maja Malou Lyse, presented at the Danish Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Working collaboratively with Malou Lyse and curator Chus Martinez, Common Accounts developed a synthetic environment that integrated artistic interventions into the pavilion architecture. Informed by Lyse’s consideration of science, fiction, pornography, and the influence of images, Common Accounts created an environment of intensified media transmission. Screens—both giant and micro—are a central motif in the pavilion. In the building’s elongated Brummer gallery, an in-the-round multi-screen installation refers both to the language of the billboard and to the immersive goggles used to view virtual porn increasingly available in sperm bank donation rooms. The film, which Malou Lyse created in collaboration with @dis , brings the laboratory environment into the gallery at the scale of architecture. The outcome is a pavilion in which image and architecture are fused together. The environment—where a deluge of colour and video offer the visitor instrumental signals—revels in artifice, denoting a clear departure from the verdant grounds of the Giardini. An enfilade condition permits a view from the Brummer gallery to a défilade of modified yellow dry shipper cases used to transport cryogenic vessels containing sperm—a series of ready-made sculptures—embedded in the far wall of the pavilion’s Koch gallery. The commission for Lyse’s pavilion falls within a lineage of interest at Common Accounts, and a series of projects that have explored the place of image in survival, as well as the relationship between bodies and hostile environments, like Clima Fitness, Have a Nice Day, and Refresh Renew. Architecture by Common Accounts with project management and execution by the incomparable @mplusb_studio Photos by Ugo Carmeni @ugocarmeni_studio @the_chus_martinez @habitual_body_monitoring2 @danishpavilion

Introducing exhibition designers for ‘Things to Come’ @commonaccounts ★ Led by Igor Bragado and Miles Gertler, Common Accounts is an experimental architecture studio based in Madrid and Toronto. They explore situations where design intelligence is abundant but under the radar. Much of their work is driven by an interest in self-design and the human body’s interface with its environment. Focused on Maja Malou Lyses Lyses exploration of how we create images and how they create us, Common Accounts has transformed the Danish Pavilion into an environment that synthesized Lyses work into the building's architecture 🏛️ 📸 Geray Mena, Christopher Sherman, Common Accounts. #kunstfonden #statenskunstfond #danishartsfoundation @labiennale @igorbragado @milesgertler @habitual_body_monitoring2

COMPOST ARCHITECTURE was the Design Studio III topic last semester at @iearchdesign . This was my sixth year teaching this magical class, where we cover architectural situations unfolding in real time. I’m thankful to my BID and BBABID students for the amazing discussions and hard work, and to @andreamuniain and @hadincharbel with whom I’ve had the great pleasure to teach this class. Student projects (in order of appearance): Zoe Boyd, Leonie Mellac, and Kiara Finck reprogrammed conspiracy theories around Valencia’s Dana in order to alleviate local climatic, environmental and agricultural frictions. Paolo Millan, Pia Finkemeier, and Aya Jamal Fawaz looked into the landscapes of antibiotic resistance in the Ebro river region. Sara Baos, Angela Martin, Manuel Arroyo, and Marta Cuesta rechannelled corrupt construction practices for a controlled decay of the Zendal Hospital in Madrid. Angela Fakhry, Ines Alonso, and Milla Marie looked into the Love Island TV series and it’s potential to reprogram Mallorca’s tourism industry’s relationship with the Posedonia Oceanica algae, and with it, broader ecosystemic relationships. Tess Wagoner, Izabela Jamczuk, Ilinca Barcaru, and Hana Atwa envisioned new futures for the IE Tower in order to fulfil it’s own carbon footprint commitments. Dharika Rajsingh, Camila Alva, and Fergus Condon questioned cultures and logistics of shark meat consumption in Spain. Fei Bushati, Allegra Galli, Isabel Rojas, and Yukta Sanjay rewrote the colonial history of the color red in Spain by remaking its multi-species infrastructures. Borys Wierczynski, Cesar Heriberto, Tasa Rahman, and Maria Melo gave ritual, social and ecological meaning to pathological and anatomical waste.

Un poco del jaleito de los últimos meses 🧚 Houston, Porto, Lausanne, Madrid

Clients and Servers, an installation commissioned for @mmmad.art at @hyperhouse.art featuring astro-poetry from @sarah_shin_ . Because life is online, so is death. Clients and Servers examines funerals, contemporary and historical, that rehearse the networked distribution of bereavement enabled by the online today. It identifies a proto-virtual exemplar in the 1665 funerary apparato of Philip IV—the monarch of Spain whose demise coincided with the empire’s initial decline. His funeral was global in its reach and set in motion the construction of elaborate catafalques in the urban centers of the empire. Clients and Servers presents a cardboard facsimile of Philip IV’s Naples catafalque, originally designed by royal engineer Francesco Antonio Picchiatti, and is the source of a poem written by the London-based writer, publisher, and curator, Sarah Shin @sarah_shin_ . The poem identifies twelve historical flashpoints that conceptually link cultures of online death and mourning to the coordinated, global funeral apparatus of Philip IV. What events, technologies, and structures have since emerged that echo this legacy? Shin’s poem responds with a trans-historical constellatory narrative. Conscious of Philip IV’s interest in the astrological and the cosmic, each of the twelve episodes is given an astrological reading, with one house represented from its chart. It occasionally quotes Life is a Dream, a play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, who wrote under the patronage of Philip IV. Hung about with screens animating a scenario from each episode and scrappily held together with packing tape, the cardboard catafalque alludes to the logistical ethic and ephemeral spirit of Philip IV’s expanded memorial program. Astropoetry: Sarah Shin @sarah_shin_ Hyper House: Cristóbal Baños, Diego Iglesias. Project Manager and Fabrication Coordinator: Andrea Muniáin @andreamuniain Designer and Research Assistant: Marie-Ellen Houde Hostland Animations: Emilie Tamtik @miile.e Assembly Team: Adina L. Velázquez, Maria Escudero Recycled Cardboard: Papeles Cruz S.A. Video Footage: Ceniza TV Additional Editing: @andrewgilbride

CLIMA FITNESS Clima Fitness is a project developed by Igor Bragado (@igorbragado ) through his studio Common Accounts (@commonaccounts ) and will be teaching the Design Thesis course in the Master in Interior Design at IE University. The project was presented at Matadero Madrid (@mataderomadrid ) in 2023. The work explores the intersection of climate control, wellness culture, and architectural typology. It reimagines the gym as a site where environmental conditioning and bodily optimization converge, thus framing fitness spaces as critical arenas in the construction of post-natural life. Through speculative design and spatial research, Clima Fitness examines how architecture increasingly serves as infrastructure for metabolism, engineering temperature, performance, and atmosphere in parallel. By treating HVAC systems and exercise rituals as interconnected systems, the project proposes new modes of climate-conscious design that respond to the entanglement of health, ecology, and spatial politics. This project reflects the broader ethos of Common Accounts: using speculative practices to critically examine contemporary rituals and the spatial systems that sustain them. Picture sources (1) Clima Fitness at Intermediae, Matadero Madrid (Photo credits to Geray Mena). (2) Itziar Barrio’s “Robota MML” presented on one of Common Accounts’ “Planet Fitness” incline trailers (Photo credits to Geray Mena). (3) Digital representation of “Planet Fitness”, which comprises an installation of vehicles, devices, and fitness infrastructure that structures the larger exhibition (Credits to Common Accounts). (4) Digital representation of “Planet Fitness”, which comprises an installation of vehicles, devices, and fitness infrastructure that structures the larger exhibition (Credits to Common Accounts). (5) Clima Fitness at Intermediae, Matadero Madrid (Photo credits to Geray Mena). #IEMasterInteriorDesign

Because life is online, so is death. Files, photos, profiles—digital remains—left behind by the deceased are newfound artifacts for mourning and memorial. Social media platforms and the infrastructures that house them have become cemeteries and funeral homes: hosts to both formal gatherings and casual remembrance. The near magical symbolism of the ‘cloud,’ resonant with notions of spiritual disembodiment and ascent to another realm, suggests an otherworldliness to online death akin to that proposed by religion. This affirms the perceptual mysticism of novel technology, or what Mayte Gómez Molina describes as the “moment in which consciousness reaches its horizon and cannot see beyond it.” Clients and Servers examines funerals, contemporary and historical, that rehearse the networked distribution of bereavement enabled by the online today. Clients and Servers @commonaccounts Astropoetry by @sarah_shin_ April 24 - May 24, 2025 @hyperhouse.art @mmmad.art With the support of @madrid

MEET OUR FACULTY! We are pleased to introduce Igor Bragado (@igorbragado ), who will be leading the Design Thesis course in the third semester of the Master in Interior Design at IE University. Igor is a founding partner of Common Accounts (@commonaccounts ), a Madrid and Toronto based architecture studio operating at the intersection of design, research, and contemporary culture. With a practice rooted in speculative and critical approaches, Igor’s work addresses emerging spatial narratives shaped by technology, rituals, and global systems—from digital afterlives to domestic infrastructures. He has taught at the School of Architecture at Cornell University and at the Cooper Union, both in New York. At IE University, Igor will guide students through the final phase of the program, mentoring them in the development of individual thesis projects that synthesize research, experimentation, and spatial storytelling. Welcome to the team, Igor! Stay tuned to meet the rest of the faculty. Find more information about the program on our website (link in bio) #mdes

Thanks to the @iearchdesign Design Studio 3 BID and BBABID students for the incredible discussions and work produced over this last semester🧚✨ on the topic of “Where Bodies Come From” 🥑🦻🫀🦎🏋️. I’ve had the incredible pleasure to teach this Design Studio alongside @deborahlopezlobato ‘s “Where Things Come From” and @hadincharbel ‘s “Where Fun Comes From.” I love you guys’ 🧠 and company so much. Student work by: Blanca Maluquer, Olivia Zanolari and Jon Durand. Estrella García, Ariadna Fernández, Nilsu Ozdikicioglu and Marion Vincey. Valeria Geyne, Marcela Cortes, Isabel Valero and Ivanna Cabrera. Divya, Selene Torres and Ainara del Carmen Rodriquez. Thomas Kuwabara, Maya Imad Michel Ishaq and Al Mansour Orabi Kassab Bachi. Noanne Maud Khawly. Anabel Pearl Guthrie. Carmen Caruana, Gaetan Baune, Milan Jacobs and Yanis Mazari. Gimena Iriondo Satrustegui, Alice Hélène C. Van Roste, Cayetana Fontecha Gutiérrez and Inés Alexandra Véronique Lugol. Sara Madruga Simeón, María Diaz Polo and Mauro García Santamaría.

Continuamos con el programa público “Mortals of the World, Unite!” en @medialabmatadero con una mesa redonda en torno a “Inmoralidad, eterna juventud y muerte” que tendrá lugar el jueves 11 de julio de 2024 a las 18:00h en el espacio Clima Fitnes de Matadero @mataderomadrid Este evento abordará la inmortalidad, la eterna juventud y la muerte desde diferentes perspectivas atendiendo a los retos sociales, éticos, científicos, ambientales, estéticos, tecnológicos, políticos y filosóficos asociados a la búsqueda para alargar la vida humana en un contexto de crisis climática, bélica y migratoria. En el encuentro participarán María A. Blasco (investigadora biomolecula, directora del centro nacional de investigaciones oncológicas @cniostopcancer y autora de "Morir joven, a los 140" junto con Mónica G. Salomone), Igor Bragado @igorbragado (arquitecto y autor de "Death Report" y "Planet Fitness: Anthropo-Frontierism and the Survival of the Fittest" junto con Miles Gertler @milesgertler de @commonaccounts ) y Albert Cortina (Coautor y coordinador junto con Miquel-Àngel Serra del libro "¿Humanos o posthumanos? Singularidad tecnológica y mejoramiento humano"). En este encuentro, lxs tres investigadorxs harán presentaciones de 30 minutos sobre su investigación. Posteriormente a sus intervenciones habrá una mesa redonda de una hora de duración, moderada por Amaia Sánchez-Velasco (@amaia.sanchezvelasco ) y Jorge Valiente Oriol (@jorge.valiente.oriol ) (de @grandeza.studio ), cuyo objetivo será abrir preguntas pertinentes (más que dar respuestas convincentes) capaces de articular y activar procesos de pensamiento crítico y especulativo en torno a la juventud, el envejecimiento y la muerte.