Biographical notes
Graduated Architect since 2001 from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain). She is driving her own office since 2001 in Madrid. She has a long and deep experience in education. She is Senior Teaching Fellow and Researcher in Barlett School of Architecture (UCL London, UK). She has also teached in Ecole Special (Paris, France) and in HEAD University (Geneva, Switzerland). She was Studio Professor in the University of Alicante (Escuela de Arquitectura Universidad de Alicante) from 2002 to 2007 and she is at the moment in Madrid University (Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain) and in Instituto de Empresa (Madrid, Spain). Her designer activity is acompanied by a research project called “Social and Aesthetic Repercussions of technical topics and solutions which take ecology into account” and that has taken her as visitting scholar to Columbia University in New York (2002), Ecole de Mines de Paris (2003) and Princeton University in New Jersey (2004) and also to the Institut d´Arquitectura Avancada de Catalunya (Barcelona), in a Postgraduate Master (2003-2007).

As speaker she has participated in forum, lectures and debates in more than 80 international destinies and more than 90 different magazines and publications has talked about the proposals from her office. Her work has taken part of the exhibitions in 8ª Biennale di Venezia, 10ª Biennale di Venezia, V Bienal de Arquitectura y Diseño de Sao Paulo in traveling exhibitions as New Trends Europe-Asia, Panorama Emergente Iberoamericano or Europan 7 and in different museums and LIGA (México DF), Galeries including Gallery “mad is mad” (Madrid), Arquerias de Nuevos Ministerios del Ministerio de la Vivienda (Madrid), la Casa Encendida (Madrid), Museo de Teruel (Teruel) and several Profesional Associations for Architects in Spain and several Universities in the same Country. She is at the moment supervising construction of her project for a Mediatheque in Garcimuñoz Medieval Casttle in Cuenca, Spain (a public cultural building including the refurnishment of the existing infrastructures with social purposes); the refurbishment of a Vernacular house in Toledo, Spain; and other smaller projects. She is also involved in the design of digital interactive exhibitions with social purpose like encourage the reading between young children (Fairytale Park Museography in Málaga) or appreciating the effort after some sports (Centro de Arte Canal).

As an architect, she claims for a strong compromise with innovation. In her project she proposes multidisciplinary exercises in which, through ecology, sociology or science, architecture goes beyond stylistic distinctions and meets again the complexity of real life in our contemporary world. She has won more than 20 different prizes in professional competitions. Some of these awards follows:

2001: First Prize for the UNED Pavilion Competition in Madrid Book Fair.

2003: First Prize, Europan 7 Competition, Site: Santiago de Compostela.

2006: Third Prize, "Contemporary Art Centre Competition, ARCO Collection, Matadero of Madrid”.

2007: Second Prize in the Competition “Pavilion of Spain at the Shanghai Expo 2010”.

2010: Runner Up in the Competition “Extension of the Museum of Modern Art in Medellín”, Medellín, Colombia.

2013 Honourable Mention in the ArcVision Prize – Woman and Architecture

Biographical notes

Sarah Robinson is an architect who has practiced independently in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 17 years. Her work has been nationally and internationally recognized for its sensitivity to both human and ecological needs.

She studied Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Magna cum Laude) and the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, drawing at the Art Students’ League in New York and traveled the globe before joining the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture where she earned her M.Arch. She participates in Public Architecture’s one percent program and was Architect-in-Residence in San Francisco’s public schools. She was the founding chair of the FLWSA Board of Trustees where she remains a member.

Her book, Nesting: Body, Dwelling, Mind (William Stout Publishers, 2011) is informed by her training in phenomenology and her experience as a practicing architect. The research for this book inspired Minding Design: Neuroscience, Design Education and the Imagination, an international symposium she created and organized that gathered leading architects and neuroscientists to explore how breakthroughs in neuroscience enable us design in a way that supports our minds, our bodies and our social and cultural evolution. Together with Juhani Pallasmaa, she is co-editing the book, Minding Design, that builds upon the dialogue opened in this symposium.

A self-educated architect, Michael P. Johnson began his design career working as a young apprentice in architecture offices while he was in college. He worked in several small firms from 1957 until 1960, when he joined the Wisconsin-based William P. Wenzler and Associates. There he served as the company’s Chief Draftsman from 1962 through 1967. During those ten years he worked for other architectural firms Michael audited academic courses in philosophy, theology and mathematics at Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee. While he was at the Wenzler office, concurrent with his duties there, Michael produced seven projects of his own between 1963 and 1967. At 29 years of age Michael began his own architectural practice in Milwaukee. Due to the provincial cultural climate and mindset of that part of the country, he moved to Arizona in 1976. His relocation to the Southwest proved vital to the evolution of his work. Now at the age of 71 Michael continues to practice architecture and heads his own firm located in Cave Creek, Arizona. He also teaches at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and lectures throughout the United States and abroad.Noted Latin American architectural critic, Louise Noelle, professor of architectural history at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, is currently writing a monograph of Michael’s life work.