Roger Paez i Blanch

Architect ETSAB, Barcelona (Hons.); MS AAD Columbia University, New York (GSAPP Honor Award for Excellence in Design); PhD UPC, Barcelona (Excel·lent Cum Laude); Certified PhD (AQU, 2020); AAI 1^st Sexennium (AQU, 2021). His Doctoral Dissertation “Operative Cartography. Mapping Agency in Architectural Design, 1982-2012”, directed by Iñaki Abalos (Harvard GSD) and Jaime Coll (ETSAB UPC) was awarded the highest distinction.

Following professional experience in the studios of Alison+Peter Smithson (London) and Enric Miralles (Barcelona), he founded A i B (www.aib.cat), a studio devoted to contemporary architectural practice with a critical edge, based in Barcelona. He has designed the Marine Zoo of Barcelona, the Hospital Clínic extension, and the Mas d’Enric Penitentiary, selected for the FAD Prize 2013 and finalist to Catalunya Construcció 2013 Award.

He has maintained an intense commitment to research, academic and cultural pursuits. He served as a member of the editorial board of Quaderns d’arquitectura i urbanisme, awarded the Jean Tschumi Prize (2005). He is research leader of the Design for City Making Research Lab at ELISAVA (UVic-UCC) since 2018,  and director of the Master in Ephemeral Architecture and Temporary Spaces (MEATS) since 2015. He serves as architectural design professor at ETSALS (URL) since 2000.

He has been visiting professor, guest lecturer and jury member in universities worldwide, including Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, IIT, Sci-ARC, UIUC and USC in the USA; ETSAB, ETSAV, BAC, IaaC (all in Barcelona), TU Berlin, EPFL (Lausanne), ETSAM (Madrid), PoliMi (Milano), DiARC (Naples), ENA (Paris), UdP (Porto), EKA (Tallinn), UMA (Umeå), IUAV (Venice) and ETH (Zürich) in Europe. He publishes regularly both specialized articles and books, notably Design Strategies for Temporary Intervention in Public Space (Elisava, 2013), Critical Prison Design (Actar, 2014), Operative Mapping: Maps as Design Tools (Actar, 2019), and Plug-ins: Design for City Making in Barcelona (Actar, 2022).

He works at the intersection of design, architecture, and the city, focusing on temporality, experimentation, and social impact. His main research interests include temporary space design, public space, operative mapping, game-based formats, and the articulation between artistic and architectural practices.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9038-552X