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David Chipperfield is a world-renowned, Pritzker prize-winning architect with major buildings in cities across the globe from Berlin to Beijing. But with a long career behind him, he has changed the emphasis and ambition of his practice. Susan Marling joins him in Compostela in Galicia, northern Spain, as he opens a handsome new home for his foundation.

The Casa Ria, in a converted health sanitorium in the centre of town, is about looking at architecture differently. It’s not about designing and building new buildings, but about improving people’s quality of life. Working in a series of coastal and rural towns north of Compostela, David and the team address issues of town planning – to bring public space back into focus, to reconnect communities with the sea, and to deal with traffic that pollutes town centres and makes them dangerous. David believes that his holistic and sustainable approach can be scaled up and become a benchmark internationally.

Image: David Chipperfield (Credit: Fay Sweet)