KEYNOTE SPEAKER

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Ana María Durán Calisto is a designer, planner and scholar from Quito, Ecuador. In 2002, she co-founded Estudio A0 with her husband, British-Punjabi architect Jaskran Kalirai. Estudio A0 has designed a diverse array of multi-scalar projects in close collaboration with its clients and community partners. Estudio A0’s projects have been extensively published and their work has been featured in the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale The Laboratory of the Future (2023). Durán Calisto is the Daniel Rose Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale. She has taught research seminars and design studios at the FADA of Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Harvard University’s GSD, Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture, Columbia University’s GSAPP, the University of Michigan Taubman College, the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, the Architecture School of Universidad Católica de Temuco, and UCLA´s Institute for the Environment and Sustainability. 

In 2022, Durán Calisto received the Mark Cousins Theory Award for her work on extractivism and the built environment, and her interest in the principles of ancestral urban ecologies. She has co-edited the books Ecological Urbanism in Latin America (2019), Beyond Petropolis: Designing a Practical Utopia in Nueva Loja (2015), and IV Taller Internacional de Vivienda Popular (2007). She co-authored the Charter Toward re-entanglement: A Charter for the City and the Earth (Bauhaus Earth, 2022). Durán Calisto has lectured extensively and actively publishes in magazines such as Domus, Log, Mold, The Architectural Review, Harvard Design Magazine, Casabella, Arquine, Pangea, Manifest, Rivista Territorio, Ness, Revista Cardinalis, Rita, LatinArt Magazine, Revista 30-60, Revista Plot, Revista Radar, Trama, GAM, Aula, and Deco Journal. 

In 2010-2011, Durán Calisto received a Loeb Fellowship for her proposal to weave a South American network devoted to critically and creatively addressing the infrastructural integration of South America. She is a member of the Science Panel for the Amazon, convened by SDSN & the UN. She co-authored its report´s chapter on urbanization. In 2015, she was the academic advisor to the Ecuadorian Minister on Housing and Urban Development for the UN Conference Habitat III. She collaborates with CAF’s program on BiodiverCities, and with the IDB on its BioCities program for Brazil. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the urban planning department at UCLA. Under the advice of Susanna Hecht, she is writing a dissertation on the urban history of Amazonia, with a focus on indigenous systems of territorial planning and colonial disruptions.

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