Completed
Awarded
Eternally in Process
Research
Past Lives
There is an anciet taoist character that represents the endudring elements upon which the patterns of cutlure and consciousness are woven together, it is undurstood as silk.
These “patterns”or “cultural wrapthreads are strenghten with those of water and earth. Toghether a third character is formed, which represents the esence of life, of all that lives, human and nature intetwined in one cosmos.
What we do in the studio is participate in this creation of patterns, we become and help others become through design.
We are interested in both past and future. Inspired in ancient cosmologies that better understand interconnection to wild earth and wild mind, we design for a future based on beauty, meaning and playfullnes.
There are no boundarires in our scope of design. We believe that a project becomes stronger when multiple lenses and scales are intertwined, therefore Illustration, Graphic Design, Architecutre, Urban Design, they are all part of one language in which we aproach our way of being in the cosmos and the patterns we create.
In all projects I work close to the natural world to beter understand how to live more in coherence with that which susttains us. As a way or responding, I work both in the poetic sphere as well as in the practical. In the poetic side I go into sensing, observation, and intution, to then respond to through visual projects, while through the technical lens I design in a pracmatic way that fits the space architeture or the design of an object be in coherence to needs, uses, and ryhtms. Through design, I am trying to find ways of living in a more balanced way with our environment, and all that sustains us. Some projects allow me to dwell in this question, and others to respond.
Design projects with a client have other constraints (time, budget and legal/technical issues) that artistic or personal research does not. This does not imply that there is no space for poetics, nor for intuition, but the opposite. There is a huge need for this, its just a matter of kowing when and in what measures. I believe there is a huge power in being able to swade between poetry and technicality.
The purpose in all projects is to go beyond what is expected by the client and expand the initial desire towards something more, a space or object that activates the senses and imagination through beauty and coherence with the environment (be it the sorroundings and site, or the history and memory of place).
I like to push myself and the client to think beyond human needs alone, and alow the project to either give to the environment somehting in return (with landscape, local materials, and vernacular building), or help us connect to our emotions and senses (may this be with light, geometry or color). Beauty at the end is about balance, harmony, and conection.
Team
Luisa Brando
Architect, artist and designer. MA in Design Studies in Critical Conservation at Harvard University GSD.
Carolina Upegui
Architect, designer and mathematician. MA in Graphic Design at Universidad de los Andes.
Architect, designer and mathematician. MA in Graphic Design at Universidad de los Andes.
Alejandra Vargas
Architect and artist with experience in urban design and planning in the public sector.
Architect and artist with experience in urban design and planning in the public sector.