Design Build Studios in Latin America

Felipe Mesa is a founding partner of Plan:b Arquitectos, an architecture studio based in Medellín, Colombia—www.planbarq.com—and is assistant professor at The Design School — Architecture Program — of Arizona State University. In 2013 and 2018 he co-directed the Design-Build Studio Nubes de Madera at the School of Architecture of the Pontifical Bolivarian University, Medellín. Felipe Mesa conceives of the architectural project as a provisional pact, permeable configuration, and positive expression of the ecological and social forces around us. His projects and research into the practice and teaching of architecture have been published by Mesaestándar in four books: Acuerdos Parciales (2005), Arquitectura en espera (2007), Permeabilidad (2013), and Arquitectura a la inversa (2017); and the book 12 Projects in 120 Constraints (2021), published by AR+D publishing.

Ana Valderrama is co-founder of Matéricos Periféricos, a collective that works for social and environmental justice based in Rosario, Argentina. She is director of the Master’s in Landscape Architecture and associate professor of the School of Architecture at the National University of Rosario. Ana Valderrama conceives of architecture as congealed emergences of a multiple and dialogical framework of human and non-human vitalities through time. She is currently completing a doctorate in Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois. Her projects, works, and research have appeared in specialist journals and books, including Poéticas colectivas, published by Bisman Ediciones (2019).