Master on Sience in Poroduct Service System Design at Politecnico di Milano. (2022-2024) Milan, Italy.
Bachelor’s in Design at Universidad de Los Andes. (2014-2019). Bogotá, Colombia.
Bachelor’s in Architecture at Universidad de Los Andes. (2015-2019). Bogotá, Colombia.
Certified program in BIM ARCHITECTURAL & STRUCTURAL DESIGN, with Autodesk certification Training center at Naska Digital. (2019) Bogotá, Colombia.
Gabriel Escobar Cortés. (1995.Bogotá.Colombia)
I am an calm and empatic architect and designer with a human centered design, service design and UX design background. My strongest skills are related to the design process: to find out (understand a context, community or problem), interpret (recognition of insights), delimit (discover needs, benefits, opportunities) and value proposition (ideate, communicate and prototype). All this, with the ambitius idea of applying it in the bussiness of architecture.
The Creative process is a hard work, it is a personal deliberation atachaed to colective experiences. Architecture and Design have had give me the oportunity to explore and propouse new things that are fullfilled by my passions: art, cinema, fotography, the music and the crafts, leaving a record of my life and maybe others life. I believe that architecture is our legacy (memmory) and design is our present (daily experiences).
Architect & Service Designer
P. 1 Italo (Improving user’s Purchasing and travel Experience).
P. 2 ZARA (Fast Fashion Industry).
P. 3 Bite It! (App for Food Lovers).
P. 4 From the garden to the object. (identity through garden objects).
P. 5 Cultural Corridors. (Art direction / Trend Book).
P. 6 Lunctus, (Good Mourning).
ITALO
(Improving user’s Purchasing and travel Experience)
Milan, Italy
Italo, also known as "Italo Treno," is an Italian high-speed train service and travel company. It was founded in 2012 and is operated by the parent company Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (NTV).
Italo is the first Italian private operator on the high-speed rail network, and the first operator in the world to use the new Alstom AGV train, holder of the railway speed record. Italo trains link 59 stations of 51 cities in Italy.
In May 2023 Italo purchased Itabus, creating a multimodal group capable of offering a real integrated mobility service with 100 latest generation MAN buses to connect Italy.
DIGITAL CHANNELS
MAIN COMPETITORS
Kiviat model helped us to measure usability and functionality among the different walkthrough analysis of two main competitors.
MAIN USER’S TASKS
This section help users to compare different destinations, time tables, prices and seat category. People can choose between different options to check which ones suit them better based on their needs and budget.
This section shows the different offers that complement and support the trips, by helping users to hire additional services such as taxis, car rent, find hotels or city tours. Is rarely used but helps to ease trips for those who travel often.
This task is highly used to get tickets in an easy and secure way that saves time while purchasing. It helps users not to loose the ticket and find it without trouble. However, senior users don’t entirely trust this process.
The report describes the development and proposal of a business innovation solution for the retail experience of Zara. The new business innovation proposes a radical innovation of the new meaning “own your style” in which the user doesn’t rely anymore on trends to build his/her style but is suggested in creating its own identity and share it with others. The phygital experience will be divided into a mobile app and physical stores that blend seamlessly together in providing one coherent journey to the user. AI and AR will help the user in saving time on browsing and focusing on the tastes and personality to provide a more efficient and focused experience.
Milan, Italy
Team work 2023
ZARA (Fast Fashion Industry)
The research starts with identifying the context of the fast fashion industry and then focusing on Zara, understanding its core values and vision, the retail models, competitors and how they differentiate. In order to broaden the understanding of a new meaning when it comes to retail service, we identified the most similar competitors (H&M and Uniqlo) and the most inspiring innovators in the field (Zalando and Shein). Accordingly, Zara's existing meaning was identified through the finding of its current value drivers that we tried to shift to propose a business innovation for the brand. From the value drivers, each team member created their own interpretation of what the new meaning of Zara would be, which were then paired and merged, ending in defining the scenario of meaning and the new proposal.
PROCESS
DRIVERS OF CHANGE TO ENVISION NEW DIRECTIONS
Creation of a shared community
Gen Z use social media on a daily basis to share their lives, connecting with other persons through common experiences and tastes.
Efficient wardrobe builder
Younger generations are used to very fast paced rythms and crave efficient and accurate solutions to their problems.
Personalization and creativity
More than ever, clothes are perceived by Gen Z as an expression of people’s identity, values and personalities without judgement.
SCENARIO OF
MEANING
If the original proposal of Zara is comparable to a pop radio station, in which you can only listen to the top charts song selected by a random dj, we intend to propose a new meaning working on the value of personalization and efficiency. Our new proposal wants to be like Spotify, suggesting to the users their personal “daily mix” of clothes, based on their tastes and identity and so becoming unique in their combination.
CONCEPT
The Meaning Embedded in the Service
Offer an efficient shopping experience and easily create your personalised wardrobe, which users can then share with other people. Users wear and show clothes that truly reflect their personality and taste, without following trends blindly and losing time browsing for clothes. Through digital mirrors and the application, customers receive accurate recommendations based on their previous behaviours. The focus of the concept lays in its efficiency and sense of community: users wants to spend the lowest amount of time possible to find the best combination of clothes that can reflect his/her personality, which they can then share with the community.
Offer an efficient shopping experience and easily create yThe customer entering Zara store and scanning the code to look for a new coat.
She sees the mannequins displaying the most liked/shared outfits of the week from other users.
She walks to the smart mirror and connects her account with it.
The system suggests the perfect coat for her and shows that it goes well with all other items she owns, and suggests other things to try on that could go with it.
She goes to the assigned fitting room, where she finds all the items she selected to try on.
She tries on the coat and the smart mirror suggests other combinations of clothing to complete the outfit, and she can see how it would look with other items she already has at home.
She liked the combination the mirror suggested and eventually bought them.
Afterwards, she receives a push notification to share her new collection on the app for a chance of appearing on Zara’s mannequins next week.
BITE IT!
(App fo Food Lovers)
Bite it mission is to provide an online community for food lovers to connect and share their passion in a quick way.
Through our platform users will be able to:
* Connect with other food enthusiasts
* Receive and give feedback (and feel that their opinions matter)
* Share food pictures in a quick and easy way they’ve never seen before
* Share their knowledge about food preparation by asking for and giving advice to other foodies (also about brands)
* Discover and rate restaurant experiences.
37 years old
Lives in San Diego Programmer / Works from home
Married / has 2 daughters
Matt is a sociable person who is well-connected to the world of technology; in fact, his profession allows him to be in touch with new trends in the digital world.
He has a modern lifestyle and also enjoys spending time with his friends and family in places where he is sure to eat great food. He is proud of his culinary skills and loves to share his creations in the kitchen with everyone.
NEEDS ABOUT HIM PAIN POINTS
• Connect with other foodies
• Show people what he cooks/eats
• Share in-progress photos while cooking
• Share recipes and cooking advices
• Share and discover new restaurants
• Be seen and appreciated
• Optimize his online time with quick solutions
• Lack of time to devote to his hobbies
• Probable guilt for sharing too much and annoying friends
• Feeling overwhelmed when receiving messages on different platforms asking for cooking advice
“I am passionate about cooking and I want to be recognized in the community as a great connoisseur”
Log in into the app
In the home section, view the Foodies. Possibility to give a bite, comment, share and save the Foodie.
Possibility to smash it (swipe) to see pictures of the preparation process.
Possibility to see all the diners from other people.
If the post is tagged, you can click the tag and see the product used in the recipe.
See all the products of the company and the ratings of them (possibility to rate them)
If the post is tagged, you can click the tag and see the restaurant.
See some information about the restaurant and the ratings of it. has posted. The user can see all the Diners he has posted. But also the favorite Foodies he has saved from other people.
FROM THE GARDEN TO THE OBJECT
(identity through garden objects)
Based on an carfull observation of the architecture and it relationship between the people, their homes and their front yards in a village called Apulo in Colombia. I proposed a modular, green and alternative space built up with seperated objects that compounds a green place.
This set of 7 pieces helps people to explore shapes, sizes and spaces. The allowance of moving, modify and control the pieces, creates an strong meanings of those who owns it.
Besides that, this 7 pieces are designed to be a complete tiles system that grows in horizontal way dependign on how many parts the user own. Due the shape and size of the parts, this design can be use to create entire public squares either to design a private green place.
Colombia
Bogotá,
APULO CUNDINAMARCA
The garden is an extention of the house and it is represented with different objects eventough there are artificial or natural.
Those belongings are a characterization of the person who inhabits the place and shows up his motivations, desires and activities.
The house and the garden are two scenarios that allows humans to develop all their dimensions of their life, including their spiritual one.
The privacy in this context is based on natural or artificial boundaries that allows the interaction between neighbors. It depends on how open or close does the inhabitant wants his piece of land.
There are some objects that shows the aproriation that some inhabitants have with their gardens.
Looking through the dynamics between the inhabitants and their open space infornt of their houses in the town of Apulo, I noticed 6 features:
HUMAN
BEING
i) Neighborhood construction.
ii) Spatial appropriation.
iii) Outdoor activities.
iv) The contact with nature.
v) The privacy.
vi) The safety.
This is an example of how the relation between neighbors and the activities that took place in open spaces brings safety in someones house.
Which similar scenarios found in Apulo can Bogotá offer?
In a scale form 1 to 5, in which 5 is the highest rate. These radars compares the features observed in Apulo with the different scenarios found in Bogotá.
The interior garden has similar characteristics of those observed in the open space in the houses of Apulo.
From this point long, the project focuses on the interior gardes as a case of study that will be helpfull for the design proposal.
Relationship map
After a huge historical analysis of the different types of interior gardens found in Bogotá and the world. It is concluded that there are 4 big groups in which gardens can be organized.
Place of beauty and composition.
Designed space.
Place for entertainment.
Technical features such as natural lighting and ventilation
Place to develop rituals and customs of a group or society.
Place for control and safeness.
Definition of fronteers.
Political an economical meanings
Place to crop.
Conservation zone.
Environmental education.
Biodiversity and conservation of resources.
Sustainability, regenerative place.
Place full of symbols.
Space for meditation.
Place full of memories and metaphors.
Sanctuary that brings protection
Multisensorial place.
HOW PEOPLE IDENTIFY THROUGH THEIR GARDENS?
The graphics shows the trend of three different persons about how they identify their gardens. Some may choose a more rational and practical yard which is the biological one, others prefer an spiritual environment inside their house, no matter what their choice is, all gardens has something in comon: Domesticity, identity and propound boundaries in the space.
ARCHITECTONICAL GARDEN
ANTROPOLOGICAL GARDEN
ARCHITECTONICAL GARDEN
ANTROPOLOGICAL GARDEN
ARCHITECTONICAL GARDEN
ANTROPOLOGICAL GARDEN
BIOLOGICAL GARDEN
DOMESTICITY
SPIRITUAL GARDEN
BIOLOGICAL GARDEN
SPIRITUAL GARDEN
BIOLOGICAL GARDEN
SPIRITUAL GARDEN
PROPOSE BOUNDARIES IDENTITY
THE OBJECTS OF THE GARDENS AS SPATIAL BOUNDARY
The objects create the boundaries of the garden. The space shape is controlled by the elements that the people use in their gardens and not by the space itself.
INSIGHTS
THE ROL OF CONTROL WHEN BUILDING A GARDEN
The garden as a alive place has “elastic” boundaries that changes trhough time, this is an impediment to the human being because he wants to control nature and the area in which it grows.
WHAT DOES THE PEOPLE LOOK FOR IN A GARDEN?
IDENTITY
CONTROL
THE WILD IS CONTENAINED
Final concept
BOUNDARIES
SYMBOLIC SCENARIOS
The human being establish some relations with nature, a dialogue some times irrational and unconscious. In this way, the people creates scenarios full of symbols that avocades the idea of sacry.
RITUALS
HUBERT
SARA
JUAN
CARLOS
Gardinus is a set of different pieces that together it creates an entire system of configurations. By only using 7 pieces, Gardinus allows people to shape and control green spaces in a various of scales, from interior gardens to urban squares.
How can we take this places and bring them up to this?
GARDINUS uses different tiles height to adapt to the terrain. The pieces allows the growth of plants. Depending on the user experience the tiles enables the creation of paths that could change through time.
The set of tiles can be use at home as an alternative to create, control and shape a garden.
The pieces allows people to shape their gardens. Is a group of objects that can be set in different ways empowering users to express themselfs and explore new ways of assembleing it.
The space determined the size of a garden.
The objects determie the size of a space.
The idea is to adquire singular pieces and start adding new ones to expand the green area. It is a system design.
The gardens are fulfil with different objects that shows the personality of his gardener.
Symbolic figures
Functional objects
Decoration
Engativa’s public square Bogotá, Colombia
Public park Bogotá, Colombia
Tiles adapt to the terrain due the different height it has.
CULTURAL CORRDIORS
This project was about exploring new ways to recognized the vaule of uncomun places to attract tourist in Bogotá, Colombia. The final proposal was a trend book that contains visual information that can inspire artist and designers to create content to capting interest for the foreign and local people who visits the city. This book brings up some insights and concepts of two geographycly distant scenarios that are aperently different but actually shares textures, colors, patterns and materials that stimulates the senses.
The cultural corridors are scenarios proposed by the local goverment where the artists of any kind are performing souranded by so many sensory stimuli that it creates an spacial atmosphire in the streets and comon places full of visitors. We wanted to explore deeply that atmospheres to inspire others to create exciting experiences.
Bogotá, Colombia Team Work 2016
HISTORICAL PLACES
The seventh street in Bogotá is one of the most famus and recognized streets in the city, due it historical value.
This is one of the foundationals streets of the city, it was the main conection of the territory. It had an economic value since its inaguration in the late 17th century until now.
At the begining it was main access of the salt trade of the salt mine in Zipaquira a small village located 2 hours from bogotá in car.
In the 40´s it was a snecario of violence and destruction that almost vanish all the buildings surround the street.
Nowdays is in the midle of the city and is an important spot of commerce and economic activities.
Zipaquira is a small village with a salt mine called Nemocón, this village is located two hours by car from Bogotá. During the 18th and 19th century Nemocón was the principal salt trade center in the territory, spetially for the Capital city: Bogotá.
During the governance of Laureano Goméz in 1954 the original cathedral was built arguing that some of the miners asked for a chapel to pray before starting their labors.
In 1990 the National Society of Architects open a contest to revitalize the old place and make it a touristic place.
HOW CAN WE JOIN TOGETHER TWO DISTANCED CONTEXT WITH DIFFERENT AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM BUT WITH A SHARED HERITAGE?
HOW CAN WE IMPROVE THE TOURISM FOR LOCALS AND FOREIGNERS WITH THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THIS TWO TERRITORIES?
Seventh street in the 40’s Seventh street now
Seventh street in the 18th Century
Salt Cathedral in Zipaquira and Necmocón
SALT CATHEDRAL ZIPAQUIRA BOGOTÁ DOWNTOWN
WHAT IS A CULTURAL CORRIDOR?
The idea of cultural corridors sought to show the richness and variety of an intangible heritage
The cultural corridors are designed to enjoy the city in an alternative way
It seeks to accept the cultural diversity of Colombia through historically significant places
CONCEPTUAL MAP
CULTURAL CORRIDOR THEORY
HEALTHY COMPETITION WITHOUT HARM BUSINESS OF THE AREA
PROPOSE AND PLAN
BOOST OF THE LOCAL ECONOMY
REDUCE SEGREGATION AND DISCRIMINATION
FACE ALL NEEDS AND TASTES OPORTUNITY
PROMOTE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF CULTURAL GOODS
OPPORTUNITY CREATOR
EXPRESSIONS OF THE POPULAR ECONOMY
CULTURAL CORRIDOR
TOWN HALL FROM BOGOTA
ORGANIZE AND EXECUTE THE RULES OF THE CULTURAL CORRIDORS
ENTREPRENEURIAL STRATEGIES
EXHIBIT LOCAL ART
DIGNIFY WORK OF THE ARTISTS
ENRICH THE HERITAGE AND CULTURAL OFFER FROM THE CITY
THERE IS A REGULATION LOOK FOR A SOCIAL PEDAGOGY
USE OF THE SPACE THROUGH A PERMIT THEY SEEK TO IMPROVE THE PUBLIC SPACE
SECRETARY OF CULTURE, RECREATION AND SPORTS (SCRD)
DECIDE, ACCORDING TO THE POLICIES, WHICH ARTIST CAN BE IN THE PUBLIC SPACE
Seventh street art. Uknown artist.
This are some of the Moodboards design using pictures taken by the design group. Each Moodboard is the visual description of textures, color pallete, shapes and general aesthetics for a particular concept.
Each concept is designed to create a trend book for artist and designers to feel inspired to create content to improve turism in the territory. The moodborads tried to join two distant worlds that share history.
VALUE PROPOSITION
Recognize the hidden value of the ordinary things that we can find in two different scenarios. Combine narratives full with visual and textures resources Propose an aesthetic universe to inspire others to create
INSIGHT 1
Those who manage to find value in these artistic manifestations are mainly foreigners and it is thanks to this recognition that Bogotans find it valuable.
INSIGHT 2
Although the proposal of cultural corridors is organized and well established, few Bogota citizens and tourists are aware of the existence of these spaces.
of the final book trend proposal
Pictures
Lunctus is an UX and service design propossal for Facebook plataform. The design if focused for active people in social media apps who has lost any family member or friend. Is a reinterpretation of the death rituals in the digital era. But also, is the reconstruction of a memory from those who has passed away and left information behind in that untouchable universe.
To create this experience we start asking ourselfs:
How do people carry out the death rituals to the cibernetic universe and how does it affect forgetfulness process?
Bogotá, Colombia Team work 2015
LUNCTUS
(Good Mourning)
98.5%
Colombians profess Catholicism as their faith.
Between 1958 and 2018
261.619 COLOMBIANS
perished due to the socio-political armed conflict.
SOCIAL MEDIA GRAVEYARD
39.000.000
Colombians conect through social media. In Bogotá alone there are at least 48 gravesites
1 OF 10
8 of 10
Colombians use Facebook
51%
Colombians use the internet in their daily lives.
2.6 HOURS
Average time Colombians spend on social media.
FACEBOOK
Place that allows the democratization of death and the memory of a dead person. Everybody is the same in the digital world.
FACEBOOK
Place that immortalizes the memory of a beloved person. The memory will always be reacheable.
Colombians visits a cemetery at least once every six months.
2 TO 4 DAYS
Average time span covering the actual death, mourning process, religious service and burial.
1 HOUR
Average time a person in Colombia spends visiting a burial site.
CEMETERY
A location in which only the “persons that are considered important” stand out while a regular person is not equally recognized.
CEMETERY
A temporary burial location that is affected by time. Graves deteriorate, which in turn is the representation of death by itself.
1. From the beginning the social networks were not conceived to deal with the subject of death. Experiencing death overpasses Facebook’s UX design, the digital world is not prepared for death rituals such as we experience in real life.
2. Social media offers a tribute profile for those who has passed away (digital ghost). Family and friends write on deads person profile wall as an offering, unlike the people who leave flowers on the graveyard for they belove ones.
1. Taken from: https://www.elpais.com.co/colombia/la-dolorosa-despedida-a-uno-de-los-jovenes-victima-de-la-masacre-en-samaniego-narino.html
2. Taken from: https://caracol.com.co/radio/2019/04/10/tecnologia/1554908443_819854.html
Person 1
Person 2 Person 3
There are 5 main stages that a person has when faces mourning. Those stages are repeted during a undetermined period of time until the person is capable to take care his emotions by his own and starts the final stage: the relative forgetfulness.
Note: Every person has it own mourning process, that can be affected by the use of social media by visiting the loved ones profiles.
1 DENIAL
The person doesn’t accpet the loss of a belove one.
2 ANGER
The person feels upset because he couldn’t avoid the loss. He tries to find answers blaming somoneone or something.
4 PAIN
The person feels sadness but also depression pictures that must desepaer trough time.
3 NEGOTIATION
The person trys to understand the loss, he find solutions even if there’s not.
Those who has already passed away and left behind all their information in social media. The Digital ghost is the representation of a person that uses all his unique digital content.
5 ACCEPTANCE
The person now understands that there’s nothing left to do and agrees to continue his life with acceptance but not with forgetfulness.
Those that are blocked by the social media and can’t get a good mourning process.
The people who prepared the physical death but not his digital death.
PROBLEM
YES, the digital ghost becomes an obstacule for those who are looking for the good forgetfulness.
There is no custom to prepare for cybernetic death, therefore virtual information is a remnant that affects the mourning of the mourners.
Spending a lot of time on social media affects the process of the mourning, because the profiles of the dead people are reacheable easily for family and friends, making it harder to overcome.
VALUE PROPOSITION
Transform the digital information left behind in Facebook by someone who already pass away into a digital memorial garden in which their relatives can interact with allowing them a good mourning process.
SOLUTION
Create a digital garden that allows the relatives interact with the profiles of the deceased ones in a appropiate way to continue a good mouring process. Along whit this platform interaction on Facebook, the relatives can also interact whit a lamp, a symbolic object full of meanings.
The lamp has a pattern of dots build by using the deceased’s information on Facebook and reinterpretation in binary code. This creates a unique constellation for each digital ghost.
Users can turn on or off the lamp whenever they want.
The digital garden is connected with a lamp (that is the representation of a candle). The lamp bright more or less depending on the interactions made on Facebook. More interactions = more brightness
Sky changes depending on the climate of the deceased's place of birth.
The type of tree is chosen by the deceased’s relatives.
Posts that people leave are shown as flowers to hide this information and made it more private.
The rabbit is a representation in real time of a person interacting in the garden of the deceased one. More rabbits, more people interacting at the same time.
Time to time the oldest post are eliminated and are shown as fallen leaves.
In special occasions (eg: deceased birthday) the tree blossom to show older posts so the relatives can interact with that memories.
Each tree has its own characteristics that are represented in values and personality traits. The relatives choose a tree which represent the best their be loved one.
