Join us for a faculty talk Thursday, 23 April at 12pm with Professor Marcel Sanchez-Prieto.
As co-founder of CRO Studio with Adriana Cuellar, Sanchez-Prieto’s collaborative practice focuses on urban renewal through architecture and research, including the development of design methodologies that expand geometry as a tool for urban sensing, architectural innovation through the incorporation of civic values and the potential of opportunistic landscapes. With a strong social impact agenda, CRO studio engages with community projects reconfiguring urban dynamics, from social housing prototypes and community centers to religious institutional projects and private developments on both sides of the border. Their work seeks to orchestrate civic engagements that question environmental values while re-imagining the everyday challenges of urban life.
CRO studio has received numerous awards, including the 60TH Annual Progressive Architecture Design Award, XXII CEMEX Awards, and the IX BIAU Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism in Rosario Argentina, in recognition of their built work Modulo Prep / Casa de las Ideas. They have been honored in Arquine’s “Best of XXI Century”, and selected for the publication and exhibition “From the Territory to the Inhabitant” for their design of new housing prototypes for INFONAVIT.
Marcel Sanchez-Prieto received his Bachelor of Architecture from Iberoamerican University in México and a Master in Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was awarded the Director’s Scholarship Award. Recipient of the Rome Prize Fellowship in Architecture by the American Academy in Rome in 2018-2019. he is Professor at Woodbury University San Diego and has taught at various universities in the United States, México, Australia, China, and Italy. For several years he participated in a wide-range of urban studies along the México-US border with San Diego State University, University of California San Diego, Colef-College of the Northern Border, the Municipal Planning Institute of Tijuana and the San Diego Association of Governments.
As Marcel stated in his interview, the topics which he brings to the classroom from his own professional work are relevant and dense: “sustainable revitalization of city neighborhoods, emergent growth on urban peripheries, resurgence of civic space, migrant populations and the impact of industry and new material technologies.” As an educator, and as exemplified through the work of his office CRO Studio, he helps students develop as accomplished designers, ready to grapple convincingly – in deed as well as intent – with some of the most important issues of our time.