Cecilia Puga & Paula Velasco

Cecilia Puga - Paula Velasco Arquitectura connects independent professionals from various disciplines and specialties. Its structure and expertise are adapted to the specific areas in which it operates, in order to provide innovative and high-standard professional services at different scales and fields. Through different international competitions, the society has been in charge of the new headquarters of Chile’s Ministry of Cultures and Heritage, the infrastructure design project for Queulat National Park, and the masterplan and preliminary project for Punta Arenas’ International Passenger Terminal. Recently, together with architect Smiljan Radic, they obtained the first place for the design of the Chilean Pavilion for Expo Dubai 2020.

Cecilia Puga is director and founding partner of Cecilia Puga - Paula Velasco Arquitectura. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile 1990. Since 1995 she has developed her professional practice independently in Santiago, where she has carried out design projects at different scales and programs, from single-family homes (most notably the House in Bahia Azul), to collective housing, educational and industrial equipment, and urban design such as the renovation of public spaces in Cerro Toro. She has developed her academic activity at Universidad Católica de Santiago, at ETH Zurich’s School of Architecture, Austin’s University of Texas, GSD Harvard and at BIAarch in Barcelona. Several national and international specialized publications have included her work, and in 2010 journal 2G dedicated its 53rd issue to her work. In 2009, hers was one of the 100 offices around the world selected by Herzog & De Meuron to design a villa in Inner Mongolia, within the context of the «Ordos 100» project, led by artist Ai Wei Wei.

Paula Velasco is director and founding partner of Cecilia Puga - Paula Velasco Arquitectura. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile 2005. Master on Science Emergent Technologies and Design, Architectural Association UK, 2010. Undergraduate and Master’s Professor at Universidad Católica de Chile’s School of Architecture. She was one of the five runner-ups of the 2013 YAP Constructo competition and was nominated for the Rolex program “Mentor and Protégé” the following year. In 2014, she was invited by Chile’s British Council to do an International Architecture Residency during the London Festival.