ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS AND WORKS REFLECTIONS ON AN ONGOING TRAJECTORY
20242025
2016-2022
2021-2022
Madrid, Spain ETSAM | Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid. Polythecnic University of Madrid. Master’s degree in Architecture
Madrid, Spain
Lausanne, Switzerland
ETSAM | Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid. Polythecnic University of Madrid.
Bachelor degree in Architecture
EPFL | École Polytechnique federale de Lausanne.
Bachelor degree in Architecture - Exchange student
ADDITIONAL EDUCATION
JUL 2023
JUL 2023 OCT
Fundão, Portugal
Fertile Futures International Summer Seminar. Portugal Pavilion at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale.
The seminar encourages reflection on water and territorry. The final project was guided by Space Transcribers, consisting in the design of interactive artifacts to convey narratives on diverse ecological issues
Madrid, Spain
Madrid, Spain
Madrid, Spain Delft, Netherlands
Superficial Matters workshop led by Laura Tripaldi. Medialab Matadero.
A hands-on workshop to create an experimental space for human-material interaction, aiming to shift the perception of materials from passive tools to active non-human entities.
Learning of diverse parametric design procedures such as bioclimatic simulations.
#Descansa. Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid.
Online Seminar about architecture and care in Cultural institutions.
The shape of an action. Advanced Technology Higher Education Network (Athens Network) at TU Delft in collaboration with OMA.
The aim was the design of a space intended for only one specific purpose. After a research is carried out, a prototype was created and a model was built.
AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS
Exhibition of the Huang studio project at Archizoom in EPFL. 2022
Swiss-European mobility programme grant.
Exhibition of the Urban and Land Planning course project in Matadero Madrid. #Bitácora: Proyectos arquitectónicos. Cuatrimestre de otoño 2020-21. Ud. 24 Soriano. With honors. Architectural Design 7.
Non Architecture Competitions. Alternative designs for cementeries. Finalist. La casa adjetivada. Otoño 2018-2019. Ud. Espegel.
With honors. Architectural Design 2.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Lluís Alexandre Casanovas 2018
OCT 2023FEB 2024
MAR 2023JUN 2023
DEC 2022JUN 2023
JUN 2022AUG 2022
MAR 2022JUN 2022
JUN 2020
OCT 2019NOV 2020
Architect Madrid, Spain
Madrid, Spain
Madrid, Spain
Lausanne, Switzerland
Lausanne, Switzerland
Madrid, Spain
Madrid, Spain
To design the restoration of exhibition spaces at Museo de América in Madrid, including the creation of customized devices and furniture tailored to the specific needs of each artwork.
Amid.cero9
Internship | Architectural assistant
To work on the production and detailing of construction-phase documentation for a project involving the transformation of a modernist building in Barcelona, intended for residential apartments and a spa facility.
Architectural Design department at ETSAM
Collaboration grant internship | Graphic designer
To craft communication strategies and create posters and videos for the lectures and events hosted within the Master in Architectural Communication (MAca).
Kuník de Morsier Architectes
Internship | Architectural assistant
To build architectural models, elaborate parametric studies for the assembly and composition of construction elements and the production of graphic documentation.
The MediaxDesign Laboratory (LDM) at EPFL
Internship | Researcher and teaching assistant
To actively collaborate in research projects such as computer vision analysis for architecture classification and User Experience Design (UXD) investigations.
Emergence Urbanism research project at ETSAM
To compile data regarding citizens’ mobility patterns using GIS platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic for later assessing and formulating urban-scale proposals.
Ademo Foundation
To be involved in diverse cultural activities, attend to a reading club, and stay in touch with ADEMO Foundation members during covid-19 pandemic.
LANGUAGES SOFTWARE
2D & 3D
Rhinoceros. Adv. user
Spanish. Native speaker
English. C1 French. A1
Autocad. Int. user
Grasshopper. Int. user
Cinema 4D. Beg. user
RENDERING
Vray for Rhino. Adv. user
Cinema 4D. Int. user
Octane. Int. user Lumion. Int. user
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Ad. Photoshop. Adv. user
Ad. Premiere. Adv. user
Ad. In Design. Int. user
Ad. Illustrator. Int. user
GIS & OTHERS
ArcGis. Bas. user
Qgis. Bas. user
Revit. Beg. user Python. Beg. user
INFECTED (ECO) SYSTEMS
Master’s thesis
Soriano Studio
ETSAM
Ecosystems are techno-ecological hybrids where human, non-human, natural, and artificial elements intertwine in contingent assemblies. These assemblies emerge not only from biological interactions but also from infrastructures and technologies that impose power and control over territories, ultimately transforming our perception and relationship with reality.
In recent years, Big Tech companies have increased their involvement in environmental assessment and ecosystem management, driving the expansion of technocentric models that obscure extractive and geopolitical interests. These models reduce ecosystems to predictable and fully controllable systems. In this context, the Paria Peninsula in Venezuela has seen a rise in malaria cases due to the bite of the Anopheles Aquasalis mosquito, which finds an ideal ecosystem for reproduction in the coastal lagoons along the Caribbean Sea.
Faced with this paradigm, how should critical environments be managed? What is the future of ecosystem management in a world shaped by technoecological assemblies? And, what role can architecture play in reshaping our perception of the environment, increasingly influenced by technologies that impose automated and often incomprehensible logics?
The project is located in one of these coastal lagoons and is conceived as a clinical and experimental intervention in the territory, where the dynamics between human, non-human, and technological agents can be explored, questioned, and disrupted. An architecture that embraces error and uncertainty functions as a critical laboratory and testing ground to study human-nonhuman interactions, focusing on the infection of bodies and ecosystems by both natural and synthetic agents.
The project responds to a dual function, hosting a program conceived as the articulation of two dimensions of action: the human and the ecosystemic. The result is a space where clinical services converge with areas dedicated to altering and exploring interactions between the body, ecosystem, and technology.
The intervention consists of architectural fragments oscillating between support and suspension. These pieces fold, intersect, and move closer to or away from the lagoon without touching it. The formal design is based on a detailed study of the site’s flows. The elevated structure mitigates flood risk while preserving natural water flow. A main volume acts as a northsouth axis, intersecting with others to create spatial and organizational continuity, oriented perpendicular to the wind to maximize ventilation and enable the façade prototype to function.
The structural approach directly responds to the specific topography and environmental dynamics of the site, adjusting to both the contextual conditions and the programmatic requirements of each area.
The different structural typologies employ a system of tensioners that reduce the number of supports on the ground, forming a structural system in which certain sections collaborate with each other to maintain balance and suspension. The height of the frames adjusts to the site’s topography, resulting in a stepped design that reaches its highest point at the central area near the lagoon. On the northeast side, the structural units integrate a walkway that seamlessly connects the programmatic units.
Aligned perpendicularly along the north-south axis, a suspended extension stretches over the lagoon, supported by a tensioned structural system. Six steel masts serve as the primary support, with a network of primary cables extending toward both the lagoon and the ground. This suspended volume houses research facilities dedicated to the comprehensive study of the lagoon ecosystem.
East façade
Due to its remote location, the east façade incorporates a prototype designed for passive water collection from both atmospheric humidity and the region’s intense rainfall.
The system consists of curved panels that align the glutters along a single axis, leveraging the Coandă effect to optimize the flow of humid air and enhance water capture. Positioned perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction, the structure features a collecting surface that cools as the wind passes through it, inducing water condensation. This surface is made of a fiberglass membrane coated with PTFE. Each module is composed of tubular profiles and stainless steel cables, providing structural support for the various water collection elements. Additionally, these components secure the aluminum profiles that hold a fiberglass membrane coated with PTFE.
The southwest-facing façade, overlooking the lagoon, is designed as a dynamic gradient of opacity, achieved through a series of movable sliding panels with varying degrees of transparency. This design addresses both solar control needs and the project’s aesthetic and functional requirements.
West façade system | Dynamic opacity gradient
East façade system | Prototype for fog harvesting
West façade
A-01 | Axonometry of a facade module
DP-01 | Tubular joint with aluminum profile
DP-02 | Gutter joint
GANGNAM LIVING BLOCK
Fall 2021
The project integrates and expands into the outskirts of one of the superblocks in the urban fabric of the Gangnam district in Seoul. Machine learning and artificial intelligence are used for extracting and enhancing architectural identity, consolidating a design process that is constantly informed by the eyes of generative adversarial networks (GANs). The research was oriented by two vectors that were synthesized in the selected dataset: the appearance of common events in public life and the aesthetic and symbolic value of the façade in Gangnam´s urban environment.
The analysis of the processing of the dataset through the GANs is key for the conception of the project. The result of the interpolation process of some of the pictures of the trained dataset is conceived as a journey throughout the Gangnam superblock, crossing multiple layers. These visualizations motivate the consideration of the temporal scale and the approach of a porous and adaptable façade that reacts day and night.
The interpolation process allows the conception of a completely perforated envelope that, depending on its density can hide or show different parts of the existing façades. The characteristic signs of the Gangnam streets that can be seen in the images appear and disappear. This imagery is interpreted as a potential for social reproduction in the new space.
Exploration of the variable façade behaviour from the results of the interpolation. The system is composed of slats that can be opened or closed at the wish by the users.
Selected dataset
Image interpolation
The project becomes a physical interface between the outside and the inside of the existing buildings, expanding the living condition of the workers of the block. Circulation is key in the strategy, as the new screen connects multiple areas of the block. The multiplicity of programs scattered throughout the project transforms the catwalks into augmented streets.
HONEYPOT
Fall 2020
Soriano Studio ETSAM
The project is based on the development of a mixed building in the city of Mendoza. In order to maximize the buildability of the given plot and free the first floor to create an extension of the Mendoza´s central park, it was decided to create a large slab, which is conceived as a completely public place, permeable and of pure urban belonging. This slab that is the result of the deformation of the maximum structural efforts, responds to the study of the confluence of urban flows throughout the plot and creates an artificial topography. This space slab is the germ that generates the functioning of the project, and its formal, spatial and structural characteristics.
The data centre located on the -1 floor, ensures the necessary heat input for the 36 houses located in the upper part, developing a cycle in which the irrigation water is filtered and collected through the slab, underneath the racks of the data centre and once heated it is directed towards the houses.
The building incorporates a digitalization centre, that is organized in different layers to maximise its performance. This complex includes a loading and unloading area, unpacking and packaging area, a domotized warehouse, a space for digitizing physical documents, and offices. All these spaces are divided by a central communication courtyard that blurs the private nature of the information processing system and allows the visitors to participate in its operation.
Housing
LED façade
Structure
Slab
Digitalization centre
The façade is made up of three layers from outside to inside: a textile layer as solar protection; the lens layer, made up of a system of rotating frames that adapt the direction of light to a specific point of view, and the layer of LEDs, which move along vertical rails.
The construction of the prototype starts from a main premise: to ensure the minimum separation between the magnifying glasses, reducing the thickness of their elements to the maximum, to increase both the resolution of the screen towards the outside and the transparent surface towards the inside. The solution is a facade of hanging pieces, in which each lens consists of three frames: the first serves as a union with the other magnifying glasses, the second is a double frame that rotates in the direction perpendicular to the magnifying glass, and which functions as a shell for another frame that can oscillate thanks to two rotating parts that join it to the previous frame and function as a lens holder. The aluminium frames are joined by bolted pieces that hold the steel cables by compression.
REVIVING LA MUSSARA
Spring 2020
Frechilla studio ETSAM
The project is spectacularly located on the edge of a steep slope that looks down over the valleys of the Sierra of Tarragona in Spain, in the abandoned hamlet of La Mussara. The project aimed to restore the life of the site, creating a housing building for residents whose desire is to disconnect from the crowded and overwhelming city and develop a life linked to nature. The architectural vision was to create a rectangular platform conceived as a new superimposed stratum of the place, resulting in an authentic palimpsest.
1. Conception of a big platform that adapts to the terrain and connects the existing ruins.
3. The introduction of housing typologies generates a pattern of courtyards that flood the interior with natural light and ventilation.
The design responds to the physical conditions of the site, respecting its natural slope, and reinterprets the relationship between the existing ruins. Embedded into the landscape, the roof is partially covered with the surrounding terrain, maintaining the ancient connection of some of the ruins and letting the landscape flows seamlessly. Reviving La Mussara is a celebration of the time where nature domains architecture.
2. The contours of the site remove some of the limits of the platform. The limits of the platform disappear with the purpose of materializing continuity and creating a new connection between the ruins.
4. The interstitial spaces serve as communal, multipurpose, and flexible areas
THE SHAPE OF AN ACTION
Spring 2018
Workshop in collaboration with OMA
The workshop explores beyond the notion of the generic container and examines the specific devices and spatial characteristics for a concrete action or situation. “Dancing on melting glacier stories in a summer between 2020 and 2050” was the selected action. How can architecture be functionally efficient to communicate complex ideas and make debate possible? The space emerges in response to Design Earth´s notion on Geostories “real change begins with awareness”, and the article “Was the primitive hut actually a temple?” by Ivica Brnich, where Lauger’s idea of the primitive hut as a dwelling is questioned with archaeological facts, discussing the idea of the temple as the first architectural work in nomadic civilizations.
The glacier narrates the story of its death through architecture, which becomes an amplifier of its sound and movements. Architecture creates a new ecological and critical vision about the Earth, making visible the territorial changing processes with the purpose of generating an impact in societies.
TU Delft
An ice model was developed, in order to inspect the melting and deformation process. Special thanks to the BK TU Delft café for freezing the water mould.
Paco Tébui 2020
Natalia Muñiz 2021
Carmen Rubio 2021
Paco Tébui 2021
Reviving La Mussara Tarragona, Spain
Nexus Lisbon, Portugal
Cloud Torso Madrid, Spain
Interior series
Paco Tébui Good trip Marseille, France
Gonzalo del Val + Toni Gelabert
Co-living Leon Leon, Spain
Paco Tébui
Flower series 01
Paco Tébui
Paco Tébui
Detailed view of my room Lausanne, Switzerland
Still inspired by Fallen Angels movie (1995) directed by Wong Kar-wai
INFECTED AUTONOMIES
SILICON VALLEY AND THE
CONQUEST OF THE PERCEPTION
Physical and digital scales, which are increasingly confusing and deterministic, respond to complex automated intelligent systems that escape human perception and understanding. Far from the optimistic visions of theorists such as Constant Nieuwenhuys (1920-2005), automation becomes an infected medium used to sow distortion and control with impacts on a planetary scale.
Recent generative models linked to creative work conceal a series of paradigms and controversies concerning the future of artificial intelligence and the dark ideals of its custodians. These models become projectors of flawed and stereotyped versions of reality; and they constitute a turning point in Silicon Valley’s conquest of the perception of the world. Through the analysis of human-machine interaction and the behavior of generative models for architectural design, perverse technocapitalist philosophies that turn creation into a manipulated good become evident. In this context, architectural discourses are necessary for the conception of disruptive dynamics that bring us closer to the understanding and appropriation of synthetic intelligence. Through the exploration of the capabilities of multimodal models and the confrontation of interpretability algorithms, a search for methodologies to achieve the understanding and subversion of neural processing is undertaken.
BEHIND THE PRETTY FACE
Plastic surgery clinics have proven to be central spaces for both Korean social and cultural dynamics and the urban and architectural expression of the grounded beauty obsession of Koreans.
The present article examines the architecture of the plastic surgery in Gangnam, analysing the dynamics and protocols that take place in those procedures, showing the role of such architecture as an essential piece of an entire system of spaces, agents and
technologies that are meant to enable and promote the modification of the body. Plastic surgery clinics have proven to be central spaces for both Korean social and cultural dynamics and the urban and architectural expression of the grounded beauty obsession of Koreans.
URBAN AND LAND PLANNING
The present project consists of a series of territorial and urban interventions in Meco, a town that is located within what is known as Corredor del Henares in the east part of the Community of Madrid. The intervention starts from two main premises: the need to preserve the rural spaces and protection of their natural, ecological, environmental, and cultural values; and a multidimensional
vision, in which the intervention on existing urban spaces is not autonomous or self-referenced. The project results from the analysis of the basis of the urban Spanish regulation, and the different levels and agents of the urban and land planning; as well as, deep insight into the socio-demographic, environmental, and economic requirements.
