The Architecture of Place: In Conversation with Sara Bega

The Architecture of Place: In Conversation with... is series of interviews between design practitioners, scholars, and educators. The latest iteration of the series, from February 2025, features conversations with artist Minty Sainsbury, architect and artist Safoura Zahedi, and architect and educator Sara Bega.

Each talk gives speakers the opportunity to discuss their areas of practice or study, ranging from topics as diverse as place-making and urban development to traditional and vernacular architecture, and field questions from the audience.

The Architecture of Place series is a collaboration between the ICAA, INTBAU, and The King's Foundation.

In this installment of the winter 2024-2025 Architecture of Place series, American architect, urbanist, and educator Sara Bega discusses her career and the role of place-making in her architectural practice with architect and artist Safoura Zahedi.

Sara Bega’s work is dedicated to the creation of enduring built environments that celebrate valued traditions and cultures.

Bega is former Town Architect of Las Catalinas, a hilltown on Costa Rica’s Guanacaste coast. For over a decade she led architectural and urban design efforts, developing strategies for car-free urbanism filled with vernacular architecture. Throughout her tenure, Bega’s design work focused on fabric buildings, public spaces, and micro-phased neighborhood plans. Las Catalinas received a CNU Charter Award (2022) and Urban Guild Design Excellence Awards (2020).

Bega is also an Adjunct Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, where she teaches studio classes on contextual design process.

Presented as part of The Richard H. Driehaus Curricula for the Built Environment at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. The ICAA is very grateful to The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation for its generous support of this program.

Tags: architecture of place, recorded event, architecture of place in conversation with, world of classicism, sustainability