B
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.