What qualities make a project award-worthy?

For me, an award-worthy project combines clarity, cultural depth, courage, ecological intelligence, and methodological rigor.

But above all, it shows the ability to bridge worlds that do not usually connect—nature and technology, community and design, cultural heritage and contemporary innovation.

Having lived and built inside very different territories — Venezuelan slums, Paris, the Costa Rican tropical jungle, and a self-sufficient home in Greece powered entirely by solar energy and fed by its own water and crops — I’ve learned that meaningful design always emerges from a deep dialogue with place and with the values we choose to live by.

Today, what makes a project truly exceptional is its purpose, its ability to regenerate ecosystems, support communities, and embody a more conscious way of living—especially in a world shaped by climate urgency and AI.

How has your multidisciplinary path shaped your approach?

My career has always centered on bridging worlds that rarely speak to each other, and crucially, on living inside the territories I design for—not observing them from the outside.

In Venezuela, for my thesis, I lived and worked inside a slum in a petro-city, developing a housing model using reclaimed industrial oil waste. That experience became a profound turning point. It led us into other non-controlled settlements, where we designed and built roads, stairs, public spaces, community centers, and cultural anchors. Over time, that work transformed into a co-created methodology of urban and social habilitation—soon to be published as a global tool. It taught me that addressing problems at scale requires structured thinking, empathy, and genuine community participation.

Paris, my cultural base and intellectual backbone, taught me rigor, urban intelligence, adaptability, and the power of culture to guide design across time.

The Costa Rican jungle, where I designed and built a resilient living structure under extreme humidity, rain, biodiversity, and topography, taught me humility and true ecological intelligence. Nature there is not a backdrop—it’s a co-designer.

And in Greece, living in a fully self-sufficient environment—solar-powered, with its own water and food grown from the land—I learned the deepest lesson of all: the value of simplicity.

Living with less sharpens your perception, recalibrates your values, and reveals what abundance truly means: time, nature, community, self-reliance, and beauty without excess.

This nomadic path—moving between slums, global capitals, forests, and self-sufficient islands—has defined my design philosophy: ecological and social sensitivity, cultural literacy, methodological discipline, and the ability to translate between worlds.

What signals that a project is responsible and forward-thinking?

Three core signals:

1.Contextual intelligence
Projects must listen to their territory—people, climate, ecosystem, culture. Because I have lived inside such diverse contexts, I can immediately feel when a project truly understands its place.

2. Life-cycle, resilience, and resource honesty
From slums to jungles to self-sufficient living in Greece, I learned to value:

• climatic adaptation
• water and energy autonomy
• material cycles
• easy maintenance
• food, land, and community systems
• resource minimalism

Forward-thinking design must anticipate time, climate, and change.

3. Methodological clarity
I look for a transparent process:

• community engagement
• ecological principles
• design logic
• long-term adaptability

Methodology turns ideas into reality and allows impact to scale.

How do different cultures influence the way you judge design?

Because I lived inside these worlds—not merely studied them—my lens is deeply cross-cultural.

From Venezuela, I learned resilience, creativity under constraint, informality’s intelligence, and the power of community.

From Paris, the art of cultural continuity, policy, reinvention, and urban beauty that evolves over centuries.

From Costa Rica, the need to design with biodiversity, rain, humidity, and the living environment as a co-author.

From Greece, I learned the spiritual and philosophical value of simplicity, autonomy, and living lightly on the earth—solar energy, your own water source, your own food, and a slower rhythm aligned with nature.

From curation and ephemeral installations, I learned meaning-making, storytelling, and the emotional life of space.

This mixture allows me to recognize projects that are authentic, ecological, rooted, adaptable, and culturally alive.

Advice for emerging designers

My advice is simple:

Start with your lived values this is your roadmap. Then build your methodology.

In an age overwhelmed by AI-generated aesthetics, your real value lies in your culture, sensitivity, intuition, and the places you have truly lived.

• Live inside real territories.
  Go where life is raw, complex, and revealing: slums, jungles, rural areas, islands, self-sufficient communities.
• Learn from simplicity.
  Nomadic Living taught me that having less sharpens our vision and our humanity.
• Develop your own methodology.
  Creativity without structure cannot transform the world.
• Bridge worlds.
  Work with scientists, artists, ecologists, communities.
  Design is translation.
• Honor ecology.
  Design with climate, not against it. Listen to water, wind, sun, soil.

If designers unite ethics, ecology, culture, and method, they won’t just create objects—they will help shape a new social contract based on empathy, regeneration, and conscious living.