about us – ecosistema urbano

Who we are

We are ecosistema urbano, an urban design and architecture studio based out of Boston and Madrid. We are designers and professionals specialized in urban innovation projects, working with the principles of design thinking at the intersection between different disciplines: architecture, landscape design, engineering, and sociology.

Our approach can be defined as urban social design by which we investigate the intersections between the design of environments, spaces, dynamics, and tools in order to improve the self-organization of citizens, social interaction within communities, and their relationship with the environment.

ecosistema urbano has used this philosophy to design and implement projects in urban contexts from different countries: USA, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Italy, France, China, Russia, Paraguay, Bahamas, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Bahrain, and Honduras, among others.

ecosistema urbano operates within the fields of urban consultancy, architectural and urban design, public space quality assessment, and urban transformation processes. Our work spans from the initial conceptualization to the final implementation of the projects, and our clients include local and national governments as well as multilateral agencies.

In recent years, our research has developed around the design of public spaces focusing especially on the improvement of bioclimatic conditions in contexts and climates as diverse as Norway or Bahrain. We place a particular emphasis on producing quality public spaces that are climatically comfortable. Our practice responds to climate change by equipping spaces with short and long-term strategies to achieve resilience.

ecosistema urbano was founded in 2000 in Madrid by architects and co-directors Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo, in 2010 the studio expanded to include an office in Boston and has been operating internationally ever since. Since 2004 founding partners Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo have led workshops, lectured, and taught at the most prestigious institutions worldwide.

latest works

Lately ecosistema urbano has been working on a very diverse array of projects located around the globe. In the last two years, we’ve been leading urban consulting projects in various cities in Kyrgyzstan, focusing on participation and urban space, and an Upgrading Project for Dhaka Neighborhoods in Bangladesh. At the urban design scale, we are currently managing the construction of the first phase of the Málaga University Campus (Spain) and developing the proposal for the Ecopark La Paz in Barranquilla (Colombia). After having built the Cloudroom pavilion in Columbus, Indiana, we have redirected our bioclimatic design efforts to creating a new temporary Pavilion for the Harvard Climate Solutions Change Fund on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Our other latest projects include Open Shore, the redevelopment of West Palm Beach’s waterfront, which encompasses also the Banyan Hub, a mixed-use bioclimatic building in (West Palm Beach, FL, USA), a landscape revitalization project for Hermosillo Historical Centre (Mexico), the Public Space Reactivation Plan CUENCA RED (Ecuador), Encarnación Más – Urban and Territorial Planning of Encarnación (Paraguay), and the Master Plan for the historic downtown of Asunción (Paraguay).

As a part of our methodology, ecosistema urbano has developed different tools and participatory techniques to involve citizens in the creative and transformative processes of urban environments. During the last decade, Ecosistema has successfully experimented with social software, communication platforms, and the possibilities offered by the new technologies to achieve the creation of more democratic urban environments.

ecosistemaurbano.com
@ecosistemaurbano

Who we are

latest works

Want to check what we have been doing lately?