With its sights set on the future, in 2024, the Universidad Católica del Uruguay is adding the Architecture, Design, and Environment program to its academic offerings. Felipe Reyno, PhD in Architecture and director of this new degree program, reflects on the need to train architects with a contemporary, contextual, diverse, critical, and collaborative perspective.
First, there is the conceptual framework upon which the program is built: one that asserts that architectural education must encompass a broader vision than one solely focused on urban growth, planning, and territory. This means training architects who respect the environment and remain conscious of physical limits to production—architects who understand that we must rethink what already exists to build a better future.
Then come the foundations—those enduring concepts that serve as guiding lights: context, diversity, politics, deconstruction, and error. Finally, there is the project, which encompasses everything. Everything is a project. This is how Felipe Reyno—a PhD in Architecture with extensive experience spanning academia, contemporary architectural practice, and museography—envisions the Architecture, Design, and Environment program. After spending a decade working between Montevideo, Santiago de Chile, and Madrid, Reyno returned to his native Uruguay to direct this new program at the Universidad Católica del Uruguay starting in 2024. What follows is a summary of our conversation with Reyno about the program.
