Arquitectonica / Bernardo Fort-Brescia and Laurinda Spear

The architectural firm of Arquitectonica is known globally with a professional staff of more than 180 people and offices in Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila, Lima, Buenos Aires, and Sao Paulo. Founding partners Laurinda Spear and Bernardo Fort-Brescia, a husband-and-wife team, continue to create postmodern designs that blend functionalism with color. Their designs have been exhibited in major museums and institutions around the world, including a show focusing on their 57-story Westin Hotel/E Walk project for New York's Times Square at the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum ran a four-month retrospective on Arquitectonica's work throughout the world, focusing on the Times Square Redevelopment in 1998.

 

Bernardo Fort-Brescia (b. 1951)

 

Bernardo Fort-Brescia was born in Peru, and earned a B.A. in Architecture and Urban Planning from Princeton University and a M.A. in Architecture from Harvard University. In addition to teaching and lecturing at the Harvard School of Urban Design, he has lectured around the world and his work has been exhibited in numerous prominent museums throughout the United States and Europe. Fort-Brescia’s designs have won many American Institute of Architects Design Awards and Progressive Architecture Design Awards. He is the recipient of the 1998 AIA Silver Medal for Design Excellence and the 1996 AIA Florida Honor for Design Award. Fort-Brescia was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1992 and was also honored by the Salvadori Center in New York with the 2000 Founder's Award.

 

Laurinda Spear

 

Laurinda Spear, Architect, Designer, Landscape Architect, received her Master of Architecture from Columbia University, NY and Master of Landscape Architecture, Florida International University. She is a part-time faculty member in charge of Design Studio, University of Miami, School of Engineering and Environmental Design, Miami, Florida, United States. As a founding principal of Arquitectonica, Spear has been active in the firm since its inception. In this capacity, she has participated in the design of nearly every project undertaken by the firm. Her projects include residences, low-income housing, luxury condominiums, office towers, corporate headquarters, retail centers and hotels, institutional and government buildings. Spear recently started a new division of Arquitectonica, surnamed Arquitectonica Geo. Arquitectonica Geo is a landscape architecture firm, focused on environmentally sensitive design. The firm explores the complex challenges of contemporary built and natural environments, developing design solutions that balance a modern aesthetic with environmental concerns to create an aesthetic and sustainable landscape. Spear is also a member of the American Institute of Architects, the AIA National Committee on Design, and co-founder, member, of the Architectural Club of Miami.

[View site]