Dr MIGUEL PAREDES MALDONADO is currently Head of ESALA – the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture; one of the five constituent subject areas within Edinburgh College of Art, at the University of Edinburgh. He is also a Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design, a chartered architect, and a partner in the award-winning research and design studio Cuartoymitad Architecture & Landscape. Before relocating to Edinburgh in 2013, he taught at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. More recently, He has held visiting faculty appointments at the Beijing Institute of Technology (China), Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (Germany), the Università degli Studi di Cagliari (Italy), the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture (USA), and the Technische Universität Graz (Austria).
His research is articulated through writing, speculative design and architectural practice. He has written extensively about the influence of New Materialism in contemporary spatial practice, with a critical focus on the novel design modalities brought about by ubiquitous, spatialized digital data streams. His current research enquiries look into the intersections of digital computation, urban public space and contemporary design theory.
In his professional studio practice Miguel deals primarily with the themes of ephemerality and the development of the urban public commons. As a body of design research his work has been published and exhibited internationally, most notably at the 11th and 16th editions of the Venice Biennale. Recently finished projects include the conversion of an eighteenth-century fortress in Santoña (Spain) into the Monte Buciero Museum (Próxima-Arquia award 2014), the spatial design and ephemeral architecture for the Zinc Shower event in Madrid (COAM award 2014 and Próxima-Arquia award 2014), and the development of a scalable residential neighbourhood in the Faroe Islands (Finalist, Nordic Built Cities competition 2016).
Miguel's research profile at the University of Edinburgh
Contact: miguel.paredes (at) ed.ac.uk
