As part as one of the punctual cultural interventions on the island of Muharraq, this performance hall is located in a constricted area surrounded by old traditional architecture. Like an Origami operation, this performance hall bends and folds between the existing architecture leaving some space for the cultural offerings planned for this area, and simulating the cultural contrast found today on the island.

Italian restaurant located at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Bahrain. As Boticelli´s famous painting ¨La Primavera¨ this restaurant opens up to the gardens and nature bringing life to its core. Several vertical gardens were incorporated into the design, a new terrace reaching out the original construction limits and also large art compositions commemorating Boticelli´s work blends the traditional Italian art of painting and sculpture with two of the now-recognized ones: food and design.

Right in the center of the Adliya district and surrounded by art galleries and restaurants, Caffe Italia brings a new standard in European design to the area. The restaurant develops a series of spaces connected to a common bar area on the inside and a terrace on the outside garden, responding with different design approaches depending on the level of intimacy the spaces bring.

Apartment building in the Sanabis district, where the residential area starts blending with the new commercial developments. The building is organized in a compact block where a diverse openings disposition was arranged for a better lighting and common areas distribution. The finishings in this project were also closely supervised due the simplicity of the design and material choices, leading to clean and minimalistic spaces.

In the surroundings of the Laguna of Amwaj islands, this apartment block challenges the standard housing approach of the area, where many housing compounds use large spaces without considering landscape limitations. As a result, a different proposal was conceived, concentrating the architecture in two blocks but leaving a larger space for open areas, gardens and access to the surrounding beaches.

As part of a private family development on the west coast of Bahrain, a group of villas spreads over the waterfront. The architectural approach remains simple, organized and open, promoting the landscaping as main feature. While some of the buildings spread between sand dunes and gardens, others get closer to the water, the different organizations in the structure respond to the need for a certain level of independence while keeping each unit still connected to the family common open spaces.

One of the interesting challenges of urban design in a place like the Dongqian lake is how to approach the relationship between the architecture and the landscape, specially when there is direct contact between the area and the waterfront. By incorporating traditional Chinese concepts that relate the open spaces with the architecture, the construction starts to disappear in some areas to let the landscape take part on the experience. Most of the spaces are directly linked with the surroundings of the lake, and by doing so, the materials and volumes start to blend into the picture.

On the inner side of the peninsula, the landscape begins to follow the organic shape of the mountains, making the promenade more sinuous than it is in the rest of areas. Accordingly, the architecture needs to adjust to those new patterns in order to keep an open relation with the landscape. Incorporating a more fluid speech between volumes and materials.

Villa located in a residential area in Riyadh, searching for a compact architecture dialogue between the two main volumes, the biggest one divided in two levels for the family, and an annex for guests. In this case, the architecture looks to unify the living requirements for both programs, complementing the leisure common activities with two external modules, depending the level of privacy required.

A residence developed in a open corner plot with some privacy issues with respect to roads and walkways. The initial approach was to maintain the open space character of the plot without sacrificing privacy, controlling boundary wall heights and surrounding gardens. The space was distributed inside the plot in different volumes according family dynamics, alternating the closed and open spaces with a series of intermediate areas designed to take advantage of the landscaping potential.

As part of a main Urban Design development area in the Dongqian lake near the city of Nimbo in China, a large peninsula entering the lake becomes the perfect setting for a high end residential development. Composed of twenty large-scale houses, this area addresses a series of challenges regarding the master plan and the landscape design with the existing challenge of placing a high end architecture development in a community with a traditionally Chinese Architecture background.

Located in the Seef district, the Cineco headquarters looks to reorganize the company personnel within a building with serious space restrictions. The design was conceived to unify the volumetric requirements of the common areas, offices and parking spaces above ground level. The dynamic facade emulates this effect, blending the different areas into one generic design, where each louver on its own frequency connects glass structure, hiding slabs and defining interior spaces, also working as a moving image through projections planned for each stripe as a reference of the industry the company was conceived for.

As part of re-structuration of the cultural icons of the city of Manama, the intervention on the Bahrain cinema (the oldest cinema in Bahrain) seeks to bring back the history of the theater with a permanent exhibition in the original building, while adding an annex extension where the original open air cinema was located. Right in this area, an interactive museum of the moving image is proposed, the idea consisting of a continuous stripe bending over itself, creating gaps between its own folding to create natural light access during the day, but also creating a dialog between the interactive multimedia panels with the exterior of the building, inviting passers-by to visit a building once considered the entertainment center of the town.

Literally the Gateway of Bahrain, Bab Al Bahrain is a historical building located in the customs square in Manama's former central business district. It marks the main entrance to the Manama Souq which once stood close to the water's edge but due to extensive land reclamation in later years is now several kilometers South of the sea. The project encompasses a face-lift of the exterior facades and the refurbishment of the interior for third time in its history, to accommodate the governmental offices for which it was originally created.

Located in the junction between Amwaj Islands and Manama, this restaurant happens to also be located between two radically different areas; on one hand, the openness of the Amwaj islands towards the sea, and on the other, the urban activity of the city. The idea behind this space was to use a construction system that reflects the new building techniques in the area, showing as much structure as possible to the naked eye, while at the time the keeping the spaces open to the public accessing from every direction, following the attraction poles from the beach and the Lagoon.

Sirmione, a small peninsula on Garda Lake in northern Italy, is also renowned for its excellent geographical location in the country's largest lake and its history. Despite the vast majority of the mooring pontoons for vessels being in a neglected state, it has not slowed down tourism. Large groups of people come each year and because of this, it is now at the point of spell trouble because of its difficult access and its inability to meet the demands of the high population of visitors each year.

The analysis of the town started revealing that Sirmione has only one access point through its historic fortress for both pedestrians and vehicles causing management issues as there are vast numbers of tourists that have begun to use areas without proper access. There have been reports of dangerous and inappropriate swimming areas and there is also a disproportionate use of historic buildings that are available for touristic uses.

The proposal starts considering the recovery of the moorings as means of access by hosting most of the high rate of tourism which can help relieve pressure from the historic center, thus making the maritime access an alternative site development.


After determining the strategic points of the site to ensure that the inclusion of this proposal was not disconnected from the pre-existing paths flow, it was established that a proper site would be located in the northeast of the peninsula where at present there are two pontoons not being used. It was then decided to select this point, along with the addition of a third site (pontoon), as a midpoint in order to create a turning point in the paths of the visitors.

The strategy begins by aligning the three platforms, as well as giving them a volume not exceeding a floor height so the waterfront landscape component gets a main role. These volumes will serve not only to maritime access, but for the specific development of three different programs. The first of these is the Hotel, which generally has a high demand for tourism as it is often associated with sailing because its great lake offers prime conditions for training international teams in the off season. Our mission is to focus on creating special equipment which will allow the rooms to operate independently from the main structure. Since the lake has a previous historical tradition of being conquered through its fortress walls, colonization of the lake from now on will need to happen in order to release tension from that same area. This will allow the residents of the hotel to decide which part of the lake they would like to experience while staying disconnected from the main structure. Using this system will also allow the restructuring of rooms in order to create various types of spaces thus giving enough flexibility to generate better variety to visiting groups.

Bodegas Gonzalez Byass have been for many years, a benchmark for the culture of wine in the region of Andalusia. Their crops give rise to a vast variety of wines and sherry demand worldwide, because such demand over the years, Gonzalez Byass have been forced to expand its facilities, conquering lands and creating new and various adjacent structures until saturation of the space available.

At the time of creating an extension of themselves, and in order to avoid transforming historically relevant buildings, the future program will accommodate a promenade between them, not isolating them from the rest of their installations.

The design strategy follows a fluid pattern through the buildings, like the wine itself finding its own balance, the intervention begins with an interactive gallery between the wineries, which literally spills information through LED screen devices by willing along its route, where information flows with the visitor. As the journey unfolds, so does the gallery, starting by incorporating more complex information elements such as screens and projections, thus moving LED display, monitors and projectors mimics with clear to opaque glass, with ceramic panels and white concrete, making the transition go from crystal clear to opaque.

The program takes place above, below and within the belt, leading to a multimedia gallery, an exhibition hall, a souvenir shop, a wine museum and finally a hotel.

To contain such large program, the strategy focus on taking advantage of the buildings own limits and the ruffles of this on its perimeter, making boxes of different shades and transparencies hanging from the belt as the perimeter unfolds.

At the end of the promenade, the visitor will have gone through all the facilities of the new extension either on top of the ramp surface within or below it, in any case, moving through the existing buildings own history as following the spilled wine flow from the cellars.

The aim in 100X100, was to highlight the need of adapting urban spaces to the real demands of users with very different needs, this time, combining to extremes as elderly and young people are.

With no specific space or physical limitation other than 100m3 per user and space to develop a project without an specific location or dynamic parameters to follow. Hence a strategy by working with elements such as dynamic areas through changing sections, structural elements that articulates in 2 heights depending on the program needs, resulting in negative spaces to the adjacent plant, thus become a system flexible enough to expand and reprogram the spaces according the user needs.

What we get is an anamorphic space able to adjust to a wide range of users needs, with a capacity to grow in three dimensions. Complementing those spaces, there are glass pannels faced with inflated air screens implanted with algae seeds, which depending on air humidity, will be able to hatch and dry as often as weather conditions change, creating a living garden with specific shape and dimensions and extremely low maintenance, producing shade in summer months and plenty of natural light in winter. Thus, the evolution becomes dynamic not only because of the resilience of the system, but by responding to external conditions such as weather.

In this masterplan designed for the city of Marzagan, the main objective was to develop a new housing concept, based on minimal living spaces established by the European union in 30m2. The main goal was to develop around 2000 houses with this conditions to study how can such a large scale project can adjust users needs without compromising the quality of life.

MiniMax responds to Minimum private space Vs. Maximum public and complementary spaces, this is, keeping the balance between what users will have to give up by reducing housing dimensions to minimum and what complementary spaces will give them back. New regulations on housing development consider that 30m2 is the minimum spaces needed for 2 persons, but it doesn't exist a deeper study about the backup installations needed for such conditions. So the project begins by establishing the minimum space for the living capsule, leaving an open space with a side wall dividing capsules and creating all the necessary furniture for such space, allowing to change it as needed, in the other wall, a Cristal wall, to compensate such reduced space.

Those living capsules will be attached to open condition structures also called "amoebas", created all along the area, with the ability to adapt to any particular need, in this case, 8 amoebas responding to cultural, relax, green, study, leisure, sports, family and single programs, each one of them developing its own content through different levels divided in: Up City (program developed in the surface of the amoeba) Inner City (Program developed inside the amoeba) Inter City (spaces created by inner holes on specific amoebas), Down City (street level & underground program). This structures will compensate all the needs a minimun living concept will create, from green areas, to orchards, parks, pools, commercial uses, leisure programs such as cinemas, bars, game rooms, meeting rooms, study rooms, sport areas, etc, in brief, all the possible needs a user will eventually need on his own house but can´t have for the strict dimensions of this model. This highlights why urban regulations can´t be created without a previous studies and essays, because by creating solutions to problems such as urban space development we can be creating others way more complex.

In order to design these amoebas and living capsules, there was a study made on the city streets by polls during a long period of time, creating new statistics from the future user groups for that project, that was giving enough data to calculate spaces, volumes and number of necessary elements needed for a successful intervention. This kind of actions takes time to create and evaluate, but certainly will create a solid base for a successful design.

After the practical approach, the next goal was to make it possible and affordable, so there was some economical and ecological inputs to consider, such as creating publicity panels on the capsules windows shades in order to have some benefit of the next planned highway on the area by hiring that space, also by creating orchards for local consume and external sale sources, by aligning solar panels on every capsule rooftop creating a large surface capable not only to cover users energy demand, but also by selling part of it to the electric company, also by re-planting the back mountain with pines, creating a cycle wood farm, planting pines in cycles, selling and re-planting them again, and using the specific regulation of the zone to locate some wind-powered electrical generators on top of the mountain, so the energy requirement cycle could be closed.

There was also a green line studied to connect the amoebas with the mountain and a landscape path, so local and external users can benefit from both nature of the wood farms and the Up city of the Amoebas at the same time.

In the southern face of a ravine, close to the university campus, was located a ground given to the university to develop students dorms installations, but first of all, a big urban planning were needed since the actual place had a considerably high inclination and most of the constructions on the place were self-built by farm workers and the access were still a big issue to solve due to the mentioned inclination.

The first part of the project focuses on studying the area, and trying to create an order between the chaos created by self-construction houses scattered through the area, also redesigning the access for pedestrians and vehicles since one of the areas with highest inclinations (up to 40%)

Once there was a credible urban planning, the second part of the project focus on how to develop a large building like students dorms in a place where the highest construction had 2 floor plants. The commission was specific into creating blocks, so the only possible option was to follow the mountain topography to avoid further problems with connections, such blocks needed to have landscape related rules, since they were placed on a places with fantastic views of the bay, so displacement and perforation were 2 words who ended up working perfectly to solve both communication problems with the landscape and connection with the main roads.