I am a lecturer in Architectural Design at Umeå School of Architecture, Umeå University, Sweden, since 2016, where I coordinate the design studio Fundamentals for the first-year in the BA program.
My academic journey is constructed through both teaching and research. In my teaching I explore architectural design and syntax processes with an interdisciplinary approach based on artistic, technical, and conceptual explorations, where thinking with the hand translates into learning by making. My design studio Fundamentals performs as the framework for initiation, introduction, and experimentation about the disciplinary knowledge of architecture. The studio works as a laboratory focusing on the exploration of form, space and material, using the human body as a spatial instrument in multiple scales. This pedagogical approach provides a methodology that articulates architectural complexity, introducing concepts, tools, techniques, theories and methods building up the architectural language, its discourse and design process.
My research focuses on investigating design methodologies in artistic practices that use the human body as a tool for spatial knowledge production. This interdisciplinary investigation moves historically between art, performance, dance, theatre, and architecture, exploring new ways to translate theory into practice, informing architectural design processes, with a particular emphasis on the meaning of form and the construction of space from the body. Recently, my research project, Performative Bodies, A genealogy from Oskar Schlemmer and Ballet Suedois, has been granted by UmArts. My latest paper, Bauhaus Revisited: The Human Body as a Tool in Architectural Education, was presented at the at the EAAE Annual conference “Towards a New European Bauhaus: Challenges in Design Education & Research” in Madrid at ETSAM School of Architecture.
Prior to joining Umeå School of Architecture in 2016, I was a lecturer of architectural design at School of Architecture, Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas from 2008 to 2016. Additionally, I have been a visiting lecturer at Veritas School of Architecture (Costa Rica), TEC Monterrey (Mexico), La Sapienza University (Italy), and A Coruna University (Spain). I graduated as an architect, with double degree in Architecture, from Universidad Central de Venezuela and Universita degli studi La Sapienza di Roma, with a master’s degree in architecture and interior design, receiving Summa Cum Laude in 2008.