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Marcelo López-Dinardi

Associate Professor
Curriculum Vitae

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Contact

Office Hours

By appointment (via email).

Biography

Marcelo López-Dinardi joined the Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University in 2018 , where he teaches courses situating and interrogating architecture in its environment, culture, economy, territory, and media. He is interested in the scales of design, the role of the public and commons in architecture, and the practice of architecture as research and expanded media. His work has been exhibited at the international Venice Architecture Biennale (2016), has participated in high-profile international venues such as the Triennale di Milano (2019) or the Jumex Museum (2022), served as Critic and Jury in numerous events across the US, and has written for The Avery Review, The Architect’s Newspaper, Domus, Art Forum, ARQ, Materia, and Bitácora Arquitectura. The American Institute of Architects and the Puerto Rico Architects Association awarded his earlier design work. In 2022 he was nominated and nationally elected to serve as At-Large Director for the Board of Directors of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (2022-2025). He is the editor of the book Architecture from Public to Commons (Routledge, 2023) and Degrowth (ARQ, 2022). López-Dinardi holds a Bachelor of Architecture (cum laude) from the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico (2004) and an MS in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices for architecture from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University (2013).

Education

M.S. C.C.C.P.

Critical Curatorial and Conceptual Practices for Architecture
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP)
Columbia University in the City of New York
2013

B.Arch.

Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico
2004, Cum Laude

Scholarly Interests

My work situates architecture within its social, political, economic, and cultural contexts, making it inherently interdisciplinary. This approach is supported by the lessons and institutional practices of the 1960s and 1970s, which I studied during my graduate education. My expertise examines and expands conventional formats of architecture’s scope and production. I belong to the tradition of academics and practitioners that considers architecture an arts-and-humanities subject, cultural practice, and “a field of intellectual research: energetic, critical, and radical.” Due to my multicultural life experience in North America, the Caribbean, and South America, I bridge language and culture by creating globally sensitive work and publishing in English and Spanish.

Courses

ARCH 305

Architectural Design III

5 Credit Hours
ARCH 260

Comparative Theory in the Built and Virtual Environments

3 Credit Hours
ARCH 489

Special Topics: Expanded Practices for Architecture

3 Credit Hours
ARCH 689

Special Topics: Expanded Practices for Architecture

3 Credit Hours
ARCH 602

Design Fundamentals II

6 Credit Hours

Projects + Creative Works

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  • MAKING THE PUBLIC–COMMONS is an installation and a conversations-marathon project motivated by the ambition and need to elaborate our positions towards the making and building public–commons, primarily through an act of appearance and conversation much required in our cultural context. The project relies mainly on direct dialogue and embodied engagement, two crucial forms of impact in our contemporary culture beyond quantitative metrics. It proposes and promotes dialogue and conversations around topics of—but not limited to, how and what constitutes the public and the commons, and why it is critical to appear in public today as we continue to battle the isolating impact of the global pandemic. Conversations include institutions, commoning, landscapes, justice, measures, cooperation, water, ecologies, language, and appearance. MAKING THE PUBLIC–COMMONS is conceived, curated, and organized by Marcelo López-Dinardi.

    www.mtp-c.info

  • As a newcomer faculty to Texas in the Fall of 2018, I decided to dedicate most of my architecture studios—junior, senior, and graduate, to learn about the cities of Bryan and College Station (BCS), their logic, motivations, and potential pitfalls. These studios were a new endeavor to many. The thinking of architecture as a cultural product in dialogue with territorial complexities has been the driving force to these research-based studios. We carefully considered, investigated, pondered, and visualized the multiplicity of factors that we understood are shaping the cities. We did this primarily through mapping. There are tens of information and analysis maps made through publicly available data. In addition, we proposed a series of urban scale projects in dialogue with those findings. An Agenda for BCS is a digital book that documents that effort to expand the scope and possibilities for how we imagine this territory.

    Digital Book with tens of maps and 20 projects shaping the agenda can be found at BCSAGENDA

     

  • I served as Guest Editor for the academic journal ARQ 111 on the theme of DEGROWTH. The editorial asks, ‘is degrowth appropriate for all geographies and cultures? Is it worth exploring if it is not an anti-capitalist pursuit? Who is responsible, and who pays the price of degrowth? And for us, what is the role of architecture in this complex web of relational logistics?’ The discussion of degrowth proposed is broadly organized by situating geographies and timelines. Contributors share their experience, knowledge, and projects from Ukraine to South Africa, Europe, the Arab Gulf, the Caribbean, and the Americas.

  • The book provides an urgent framework and collective reflection on understanding how to reconsider and recast architecture within ideas and politics of the commons and practices of commoning. Architecture from Public to Commons opens a dialogue with the scales of the commons, the limits of language for fluid identities, the practices of architecture as an institution, the design of objects for shared value, land protocols that explore alternatives to profit-seeking, and spirited conversations about revolting against architectural labor. Specific chapters also explore the boundaries of Blackness across the Atlantic, water cycles in depleted territories, indigenous women-led territorial and human rights cases, climate change accidental commons, and the active search for racial justice with design and place. Contributions range from theoretical and historical essays to current case studies of on-the-ground practices in the US, the Middle East, Europe, and Central and South America.

    The book counts with contributions by Pelin Tan, Amira Hanafi, Marina Otero Verzier, Fernando Portal, Nandini Bagchee, coopia, Emanuel Admassu, Luciana Varkulja, Linda Schilling Cuellar, Elis Mendoza, Janette Kim, and Bryan Lee Jr.

     

    What commons, for what socialnesses? This is the question this book
    addresses. This convenes a specific mode of inquiry that characterizes a new network of researchers and thinkers gathered in this volume, who are gaining a growing voice in the field of critical architectural practices.

    Words from the Preface by Andrés Jaque, Dean and Professor of Architecture, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University.

     

    Available online here: https://www.routledge.com/Architecture-from-Public-to-Commons/Lopez-Dinardi/p/book/9781032394459# Discount Code: ESA33

Staff Publications

  • 2023 Architecture from Public to Commons Purchase