CONTEXT-COLLECTIVE
DESIGN COLLECTIVE
VISION
Context Collective is a transdisciplinary platform bringing together architects, urban designers, philosophers, researchers, antropologist, artists, and cultural practitioners from different parts of the world, with diverse backgrounds and particularly from the Global South, including India, Colombia, and Uruguay but also Netherlads, Spain, Belgium and France. Rather than a conventional studio, it operates as a collective framework where different forms of knowledge intersect to address cultural, social, and historical conditions.
The core architectural team is a long-standing group that worked together for many years at Ateliers Jean Nouvel, where a shared sensitivity to context, site, and cultural specificity was developed through international projects. This experience shaped a common approach rooted in contextual awareness apart our historical, cultural and territory contexty sensitivity.
The collective also brings together practitioners with experience in BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group and UNESCO, as well as academic and cultural fields across Europe, Latin America, and beyond, including architects, designers, BIM coordinators, philosophers, and social scientists.
Our approach understands architecture as emerging from context—historical, territorial, social, and political—and as a relational practice shaped by collective life. This is particularly relevant when engaging with contested or fragmented histories.
Context Collective operates through dialogue and shared authorship, where museums and cultural spaces are seen as civic infrastructures for the continuous redefinition of memory and public meaning. Ultimately, the collective frames design as a responsibility to shape spaces where collective memory can be critically engaged and transformed into shared futures.
TEAM
Architect - Antropology
Architect
Valle Pineiro
Museum Expert - Architect
Senior Architect
Arc - Urban Designer
Architect - Interior Design
Program Officer - Policy
Senior Architect
PHD - Philosofer
Stephanie Aya Pastrana
Architect - Antropologist
Colombia.
Architect and urban designer holding a Master of Science in Urban Strategies and Design and an Advanced Master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies, Stephanie specializes in bridging the gap between spatial practice and critical social inquiry. Her academic and professional trajectory is rooted in the study of space, memory, and power, exploring how cultural narratives influence the built environment.
Over the past seven years, she has developed projects at the intersection of architecture, urban research, and community-based processes, focusing on public space as a site of negotiation, representation, and collective meaning. Her work engages with questions of social justice, spatial inequalities, and the role of design in addressing historically rooted forms of exclusion and marginalization.
By integrating anthropological methods such as qualitative research and participatory fieldwork, Stephanie develops a deep understanding of local knowledge systems. This perspective allows the Collective to move beyond purely technical or formal responses, fostering design processes that are highly attentive to context, identity, and the plurality of voices involved.
Her interest lies in exploring how architecture and urbanism can contribute to the construction of critical narratives, particularly in regions marked by contested histories. Through research, teaching, and project development, she seeks to support spatial practices that are both reflective of their environment and transformative for their communities.
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Isaac Vaarzon
Architect
Netherlands.
Architect trained in the Netherlands at Delft University of Technology, with professional experience developed across internationally recognized practices including Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Dominique Perrault Architecture, and Kengo Kuma and Associates. Working within large multidisciplinary teams, he contributed to concept development, consultant coordination, and technical detailing, helping translate architectural ideas into coherent and precise spatial solutions while preserving the conceptual clarity and integrity of the design process.
Originally from the Netherlands, born in Amsterdam, his background brings a strong understanding of Dutch spatial culture, attention to landscape traditions, and the social values embedded within the built environment. His academic studies in Delft, combined with his personal familiarity with Dutch history, informs an approach to architecture that is deeply attentive to public space, water, and the integration of projects within historically layered urban environments.
Working in fast-paced international contexts has allowed him to develop a structured and collaborative approach to complex projects, balancing technical rigor with sensitivity to context and cultural specificity. His experience navigating between design intent, coordination processes, and implementation has strengthened his ability to work across scales and disciplines while remaining attentive to the broader social and spatial implications of architecture.
Within the collective, he contributes a grounded local perspective shaped by a close understanding of the cultural, social, and territorial dynamics of the Netherlands. His knowledge of the place, together with his international experience, supports the development of proposals that are both contextually informed and responsive to historical and contemporary realities.
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Valle Pineiro
Museum Expert - Senior Architect
Spain.
Architect and senior project manager with more than 20 years of international experience in cultural, museum, exhibition, scenography, and high-end interior design projects. Her professional trajectory has been deeply connected to the development of narrative-driven spatial environments, with a particular focus on museums and exhibitions as spaces where architecture, storytelling, and public experience converge.
Over the course of 11 years at Ateliers Jean Nouvel, she developed extensive expertise in the coordination and realization of large-scale international cultural projects. Notably, she worked for 2 years on-site at the National Museum of Qatar, contributing to the delivery and artistic coordination of one of the most ambitious museum projects of recent decades. This experience strengthened her ability to navigate highly complex production environments while maintaining a strong commitment to conceptual clarity, spatial quality, and curatorial intent.
Her career bridges both project development and on-site implementation, combining design coordination, production management, artistic direction, and construction supervision. This dual perspective allows her to guide projects from early conception through final execution, translating creative and curatorial visions into coherent built experiences with precision and sensitivity.
Particularly engaged with cultural and exhibition environments, she approaches scenography and museum design as disciplines capable of shaping meaningful relationships between space, objects, narratives, and audiences. Her experience working within multidisciplinary and multicultural teams has reinforced a collaborative and detail-oriented approach, grounded in technical rigor while remaining attentive to the emotional and experiential dimensions of cultural spaces.
Agustin Galeano -(Collective Coordinator)
Architect - 3d Artist
Urugay-France.
Senior architect, project manager, and 3D artist based in Paris, with international professional experience shaped through his work during more than 4 years at Ateliers Jean Nouvel, where he led teams and developed complex projects within multidisciplinary and international environments.
Acting as a key coordinating figure within collaborative processes, his experience spans all phases of design, from competitions and conceptual development to technical coordination and construction documentation, allowing him to bridge ambitious architectural ideas with coherent and buildable solutions. His work has also been recognised through several awarded competition proposals developed in international contexts.
Alongside his professional practice, he has taught in academic environments in Paris (ESA) and Montevideo (UdelaR), contributing to reflections on contemporary architectural practice, representation, and narrative construction. This pedagogical experience reinforces an approach grounded not only in technical and spatial resolution, but also in critical thinking, cultural sensitivity, and conceptual coherence.
His practice operates at the intersection of architecture, representation, narrative, and territory, with a particular focus on how projects emerge from the cultural, historical, and geographic specificities of a site. He is especially interested in architecture’s capacity to articulate relationships between place, identity, and collective experience, developing proposals that are simultaneously contextual, innovative, and conceptually rigorous.
Alongside his architectural work, he engages in visual production as a 3D artist, using representation as a critical medium for storytelling and spatial thinking. Through images and narrative construction, he explores how architecture can communicate atmosphere, memory, and future imaginaries, reinforcing coherence between concept, representation, and built form.
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Federico Bernal
Architect - Urban Designer
Colombia.
Trained as an architect in Colombia and as an urban designer in the Netherlands, Federico has experience working on projects across multiple scales and in a variety of contexts—from university campuses to metropolitan parks and urban strategies. He has a particular interest in public space as a means of integrating architectural projects into their broader context and fostering community engagement.
Over the past four years, he has worked at Güller Güller in Rotterdam, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, and most recently at Leclercq Associés in Paris. In these roles, he has engaged in urban development and landscape design projects across France, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco.
After completing his architectural studies in 2014, Federico spent three years on-site managing construction in Bogotá. In 2017, he joined the firm of Lorenzo Castro, where he contributed to the design of a 17 km promenade along the Fucha River and two university campuses, one of which is currently under construction. In 2019, he collaborated with Taller Architects on the design of the Forest Sports Park in Shenzhen.
Driven by a commitment to study the complex dynamics of his home country and fascinated by the Dutch tradition of urban planning, he moved to the Netherlands. During his studies at TU Delft, he engaged in two community-based projects: “Reimagining Heerenstraat,” supporting the Urban Rehabilitation program in Paramaribo, Suriname—where he had the privilege to learn from Dutch history in South America and explore bottom-up approaches to preserving public space. Similarly, his master's thesis, “Living on the Edges of a Border City,” examined how global challenges affect local communities in Cúcuta, a border city between Colombia and Venezuela.
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Alvaro Valcarce
Senior Architect
Spain.
Senior architect, project manager and BIM manager with more than 13 years of international experience delivering complex large-scale projects across education, research, mixed-use, residential, and hospitality sectors. His professional trajectory has developed through work in diverse geographic and cultural contexts, including France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Italy, China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Monaco, and Panama, shaping a broad and sensitive understanding of architecture as a practice deeply informed by context, collaboration, and cultural specificity.
Having worked within internationally recognized practices such as Ateliers Jean Nouvel and BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, he has contributed to the development and coordination of ambitious architectural projects within highly demanding multidisciplinary environments. His experience spans all project phases, from international competitions and conceptual development to construction documentation and technical coordination under AIA, RIBA, and European frameworks.
Alongside his architectural expertise, he has developed strong specialization as a BIM manager, leading the implementation of BIM methodologies and advanced coordination processes across large consultant teams involving more than twenty disciplines. His approach combines technical rigor with strategic oversight, enabling efficient workflows, risk mitigation, and the delivery of high-quality and sustainable project outcomes.
Working across international settings has reinforced his ability to navigate complex organizational structures while remaining attentive to the social, spatial, and environmental dimensions of architecture. Within collaborative environments, he contributes a mature and thoughtful perspective shaped by extensive global experience, technical leadership, and a strong commitment to design excellence and interdisciplinary coordination.
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Cristina Perez
Program Officer - Policy
Belgium-Spain.
Professional with an interdisciplinary background in Political Science, Philosophy of Law, and Science for Policy Research, bringing a strong analytical perspective grounded in the social sciences. Her academic formation focuses on understanding political systems, governance structures, and the role of institutions in shaping social and cultural transformations.
He currently works at UNESCO, where he contributes to policy-related work and strategic frameworks addressing cultural, educational, and societal challenges. This experience has strengthened his sensitivity to the role of cultural institutions, particularly museums, as spaces of knowledge production, memory construction, and public dialogue, as well as arenas where political, historical, and social narratives intersect.
Her professional practice focuses on policy analysis and strategic foresight, with a particular interest in anticipating social and institutional change and supporting decision-making processes in complex international environments. He engages with questions of governance, social justice, and the evolving relationship between institutions and society, bringing a critical and reflective approach to contemporary policy challenges.
Fluent in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese, she works effectively in multicultural and multilingual contexts, contributing to international teams and cross-cultural initiatives with clarity and precision. Her communication skills support her ability to translate complex political and social ideas into accessible insights for diverse audiences.
Within multidisciplinary projects, she offers a non-architectural yet complementary perspective rooted in political and social analysis. Her profile is particularly relevant in contexts involving cultural institutions, heritage, and public engagement, where an understanding of broader societal dynamics is essential. Through his work, he contributes a critical, institutionally aware voice that enhances the collective’s engagement with cultural and social complexity.
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Soumil Sharma
Senior Architect
India.
Interior architect and designer with 10 years of professional experience focused on interior architecture, scenography, exhibition design, object design, and material research. His practice is centred on interior space as a medium for narrative and sensory experience, with particular attention to how materiality, light, proportion, and detail shape atmosphere and spatial perception.
Trained in Paris and India, he developed his professional career in internationally recognised contexts, including work at Ateliers Jean Nouvel, where he contributed as an interior architect to projects in which interior design plays a central role in defining spatial identity and experience. This experience reinforced his ability to work within complex, high-profile projects where architecture and interior design are closely intertwined.
He later pursued a Master’s degree in Design Research at ENS Paris-Saclay in collaboration with ENSCI – Les Ateliers, strengthening a research-driven approach to interior architecture. His work explores material experimentation, spatial perception, and the development of atmospheres through analytical and experiential design processes.
Beyond architectural practice, he has developed a strong engagement with exhibition and scenographic environments, designing spatial experiences that translate cultural narratives into immersive interiors. His approach is grounded in the relationship between object, space, and user experience.
Alongside his practice, he co-leads The Silk Road Paris, a curated platform dedicated to contemporary fashion and object designers, reflecting his interest in material culture, craftsmanship, and interdisciplinary design dialogues.
His profile is defined by a sustained focus on interior architecture as a critical and expressive field, combining conceptual clarity with refined sensitivity to atmosphere, materiality, and spatial storytelling.
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Martin Sorondo
PHD Philosopher
Uruguay.
Philosopher and researcher working on the intersections between science, technology, politics, and contemporary forms of knowledge. His research focuses on temporalities in modern and postmodern thought, drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault to examine how regimes of power and knowledge shape collective life, historical interpretation, and processes of social memory.
In his doctoral work, he studied the genealogy of a contemporary episteme structured by cybernetics, its links to post-humanist thought, and its relation to managerial and technical forms of political rationality. This research engages classical and modern philosophy through concepts such as power, virtuality, differentiation, and individuation, offering tools to critically understand how contemporary systems of governance and subjectivity are produced.
He also has a strong background in Latin American studies, focusing on the construction of national imaginaries in South America through political, legal, and literary discourses. Literature, central to his studies in Uruguay, remains an ongoing area of reflection at the intersection of philosophy, history, and cultural analysis, particularly regarding narrative and representation. He is also co-founder of Casa de la Filosofía in Uruguay, an independent platform dedicated to critical thought, collective inquiry, and interdisciplinary dialogue across philosophy, the arts, humanities, and social movements.
He has extensive teaching experience in philosophy, Latin American civilization, and languages across secondary education, universities, and professional schools. He has also organised international conferences fostering dialogue between Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
His work provides a critical perspective on how historical narratives are constructed and institutionalised, making it particularly relevant to cultural institutions such as museums. This includes reflection on how histories of slavery, colonialism, and memory are represented, interpreted, and made visible in contemporary public spaces.