Yuri Leonardo Works — Rialengo No.3

Yuri Leonardo Works

Systems & Concepts Architecture

BusinessesArchitectural projectsInterior spaces

+1 (829) 629 1480 works@yuri-leonardo.com yuri-leonardo.com Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic LinkedInInstagram

“. . . creative solutions, any problem that we have or anything we want to get better at, there’s usually a creative path to improve or at least to test to see if there are other ways around. Often the accepted version of how to move forward is another limitation.”

Rick Rubin, The Diary of a CEO
What I do

Your business already has clients and work coming in. But the operation that produces it was never designed — it accumulated: in one person’s head, in spreadsheets and WhatsApp, or in systems that each see only their own piece. That is why everything still depends on one person, or why growth has stalled and no one can point to where it jams. I draw the floor plan of your operation. Processes, tools and the way your team uses them, in four phases that run from diagnosis to adoption. What we end up with is not a piece of software: it is an operation that no longer depends on any single person, and a measure that keeps it that way.

Yuri Leonardo

DEA, Ma., Arch. I am Yuri Leonardo — Systems & Concepts Architect. I design and deliver solutions for businesses, architectural projects and interior spaces.

Trained

  • Advanced Studies Diploma (DEA) in Project Criticism and Analysis ETSAB, Barcelona
  • Master’s in Architectural Design ETSAB, Barcelona
  • Architect UNPHU, Santo Domingo
  • Fine Furniture Making Diploma (CAP) École Boulle, Paris

Practice

  • Project Manager Estudi Alfa Arquitectes, Barcelona, 2004–2008 · AUA Paul Chemetov, Paris, 2008–2011

From design to construction follow-up — housing, urban master plans, public infrastructure.

Across

Since 2003 I have lived and worked in Spain, France, Germany and the Dominican Republic. I work in English, Spanish and French.

  • Solo shows Centro Cultural de España, Santo Domingo, 2014 and 2017
  • Artist in Residence Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, 2015–2016 · solo show, 2016
  • Dak’Art OFF Program Dakar, 2016
Yuri Leonardo on a ladder, painting a large black mural on a white wall
Preparing Ausentes, solo show, Centro Cultural de España, Santo Domingo, 2017.

Design and production

  • Founder and Product Designer Lar Bags, Berlin, 2016–2018 City bags made with Dominican artisans.
  • Freelance Designer Michael Sailstorfer, Berlin, 2018 Design and construction of sculptures; exhibition design.
  • Production Manager and Specialist Fine Furniture Maker P3 Madera Studio, Punta Cana, 2020–2021 Production protocols and quality standards; complex pieces built in person.

Public sector

  • Design Advisor and Coastal-Infrastructure Project Coordinator Ministry of Tourism of the Dominican Republic, 2021–2023
  • Upholding the technical and architectural design standards of the Directorate’s projects.
  • Implementing new design protocols and work-ethics standards within the team.
  • Coordinating the design and implementation of those projects at territorial scale.

Today: one criterion, three fields

  • Businesses Seventeen in-house applications A finishes retailer, 2025–2026 A sales cycle, from first contact to payment, that only three people could run became one any member of the sales team could run.
  • Architectural projects Site Control Own product A program that guides, records and centralises a building site’s processes, from construction drawings to handover.
  • Interior spaces Space Designer Own product A program that designs from the interior to the module and its site: kitchens, closets, bathrooms and prefabricated pavilions, in use on real commissions.

Teaching: Lecturer, PUCMM, 2021–today, Proyecto VI; UNPHU, 2021–2025.

Start with The Operation Map →

What hurts

Your business is trending towards chaos, and you spend more of every day putting out fires.

Every day starts reactive. You handle the urgent, with less time each day for the important, and tomorrow the same fire starts again.

That is not a lack of effort or of discipline. Nothing in the business decides what comes first, so urgency decides it for you — and urgency always picks the loudest thing, never the most valuable one.

The way out is not a better personal productivity system. It is deciding once, in writing, how work enters the business and in what order it gets done — so that the decision is already made before the day starts.

How much does it cost to sort out my business operations or run an operations audit?

It starts with a diagnosis —The Operation Map— with its price agreed before it starts, that sets the scope and the cost of whatever follows. The Map stands on its own: you can stop there. You pay for a result, not for open-ended hours, and anything outside the Map is an agreed change of scope, not a surprise. What comes after is one project at one price, paid out as each phase is delivered — not phases bought separately. That is what keeps the project from running away.

Do I need an AI agency to automate my business?

No. AI is execution, not a starting point: automating a badly defined process only entrenches the error faster. First you design the architecture of the operation; then agents come in as an execution layer subordinate to the process. That is what separates an operations architect from an AI agency.

Your business depends on you. Everything goes through your hands.

If you step away for a day, the operation stops. It is not that you refuse to delegate: there is nothing to delegate to.

That is not a refusal to let go. Your business never had a floor plan — a drawing of how the work should circulate — so the only route the work has ever had is through you.

The way out is not delegating harder. It is building somewhere for the work to live other than your head, so that handing it over stops meaning explaining it again.

How do I make my business less dependent on me?

This is not a problem of personal organisation but of architecture. You get out of it by documenting the processes that currently live in your head, defining clear responsibilities, and putting in tools and execution that absorb the repetitive work. The Operation Map diagnoses where you sit at the centre and what to take off your plate first.

How do I systematise my business so it runs without me?

Systematising means designing the operation as a system: processes first, then tools, then team adoption, in that order. Buying software before the process exists only automates the confusion. It starts with a diagnosis —the Map—, priced before any work begins, that shows where you are the bottleneck, before anything gets built.

You grow, and you drown a little more.

More sales ought to be better. Instead, every new client multiplies the work only you know how to do.

That is not a sign you grew too fast. With no designed structure to carry it, volume does not spread out — it piles onto the one person who knows how everything is done.

The way out is not hiring ahead of the disorder. It is redesigning how the work circulates before you add more of it, so that the next client lands on a structure instead of on you.

My business is growing but I am more overwhelmed than ever — why?

More volume on top of an operation with no structure multiplies the owner’s load instead of spreading it. It is not solved with more hours or more hires layered on the same disorder, but by redesigning how the work circulates. The Map shows which part of the operation is not scaling with you.

How do I professionalise my operation so I can grow?

Operational infrastructure is not a software stack: it is the architecture of how work flows, with the tools serving the process rather than the other way round. Scaling means redesigning that flow so growth does not always land on one person. The Map fixes the scope of what to build first.

Your processes live in your people’s heads.

Nothing is written down. Everyone does it their own way, and critical knowledge is a single point of failure — one that draws resources and energy.

That is not a problem with your team. What was never written down cannot be taught, audited or improved. It can only be remembered — by whoever happens to still be here.

The way out is not a manual nobody opens. It is putting the process inside the tool the team already uses every day, so that following it is the path of least resistance rather than an extra task.

What do I do if all our processes are in my employees’ heads?

Undocumented knowledge is a single point of failure. The work is to draw it out, standardise it into procedures (SOPs) and leave it in the business rather than in the individuals —so the operation survives anyone’s departure. The Map identifies the critical processes and where dependence on one person exposes you.

How do I get my team to actually follow new processes?

Adoption is part of the design, not an afterthought: a process nobody follows does not exist. Operations Architecture includes the adoption layer explicitly —the team learns the process inside the system it uses every day. It is the third leg of the method: processes → tools → adoption.

You no longer have guided control over the way things happen in your business. You are operating blind in open waters.

You decide on instinct because you have no numbers you trust. A dashboard on blurry data does not give you control — it gives you the illusion of it.

That is not a missing dashboard. Numbers are a by-product of work that happens the same way twice. Where the process varies, the data cannot be trusted — and measuring harder only makes the noise arrive faster.

The way out is not a dashboard on top of the mess. It is fixing what the operation records as it runs, so the numbers have somewhere true to come from before anyone plots them.

I need to get control of my operation and have real KPIs — where do I start?

Control comes from a well-defined process, not from the dashboard. First you define what to measure and where clean data comes from; the measuring tool comes afterwards, built on an operation that already circulates properly. The Operation Map establishes what is worth measuring before anything gets installed.

How is an operations consultant different from just buying software?

Software on top of a chaotic operation scales the chaos. Operations Architecture designs the operating floor plan first —processes, then tools, then adoption— and picks the tool (and the execution AI) to serve that design. That is why the work starts with a diagnosis, not with an app.

Your company grew faster than its organisation. Now it has stalled — or it sells more and earns no more.

Your accounting team tells you what came in and what went out. Your finance team tells you where you could grow. Each department reports on its own piece — and the loss comes from the way the pieces work together.

Accounting and finance produce the evidence, and they do it well. They are not mandated to redesign the operation that generates it. A cost that rises in one department is usually decided in another; a margin that shrinks is often lost between two of them.

The way out is not another report, nor software for its own sake. It is reading the evidence your systems already produce across the company, finding where the loss starts, and redesigning the operation at the root — then building what holds the change around the systems you already have.

My accountant already tells me where I am overspending. Why would I need an operations architect?

Your accountant tells you where the money goes. Tracing it back through processes, responsibilities and tools to the way the operation is designed — and redesigning that — is a different mandate. The Operation Map does that tracing, and it quantifies, per month, what each break costs you, so the work that follows has a number to beat.

How is this different from implementing an ERP or hiring a management consultant?

The difference is where the work ends. The Operation Map stands on its own: you can stop there. If you go on, design, construction and adoption are one project at one price — and it ends with the redesigned operation running and used by your team, not with a recommendation or a configured tool.

When it works

Your company works. You want to know where its structure is already strained — before you grow.

Nothing is on fire. But the structure that got you here was never designed — it accumulated — and you suspect it will not carry the next stage.

Growth often fails inside before it fails in the market: the same processes, approvals and tools, asked to carry twice the volume, start costing more than they return. The time to find those points is while the business is healthy, not after they break.

The way out is drawing the structure you have, finding where it is already strained, and redesigning what will not hold before you open the next line or site — working alongside your leadership and your finance team, so that the strategy and the structure that has to carry it are designed together.

Does an operations architect help with a growth strategy?

Yes — working in parallel with your leadership and your finance team. They bring the market and the numbers; I bring the structure that has to carry the strategy: who decides what, how the work circulates, which tools hold it, and what has to exist before the volume arrives. A growth strategy designed without its structure is a plan the operation cannot execute.

How do I know if my company’s structure can scale?

By drawing it as it actually works today. The Operation Map shows where today’s structure is already strained and what that strain costs you per month. Those are the points to redesign before the volume arrives, not after.

That is what Operations Architecture does: it designs the floor plan of your business with the discipline of an architectural project — processes first, then tools, then the team’s adoption. You do not start by buying a system: you start with The Operation Map, a diagnosis with its price agreed before it starts, that makes your real operation visible and sets what to build first.

Start with The Operation Map →

How I work

Yuri Leonardo Works is an Operations Architecture practice: I design the operating floor plan of a business — its processes, its tools and the way a team uses them — with the discipline of an architectural project. What brings order to a building brings order to a company. That discipline comes from more than twenty years of project and design work at every scale, from furniture to territory, and from a body of work in architecture and art made with the same method. Based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; open to clients anywhere in the world, in English, Spanish and French, with systems and documentation delivered in your team's language.

The method

The work starts from the same operation in any domain: read the logic of a situation — a business, a place, an image — propose a different way of doing it, and build the system that supports it. How I do that is itself a method, and I wrote it down: I call it the Rhizome Method. In consulting it lands as four phases: diagnosis, process design, tool building, adoption and measurement.

Design and construction are two different processes, and construction is always subordinate to design: design while you build and you undo with your feet what you made with your hands. That is the single biggest reason a project piles up hours and drifts away from what it was for — the time goes into fixing things that were only built wrong because nobody drew the lines first.

A project opens with a single root concept and the objective it has to reach, declared at the same moment, so there is a fixed point of arrival rather than branches of thinking with nothing concrete at the end of them. From each concept no more than three follow, and between one line and the next comes a moment of verification — not of building. What it produces is a map rather than a document: when something in the finished thing fails, you go to the node that caused it, correct it there and rebuild from that point, instead of patching the object. It is built for speed, not ceremony. I design things to be used and tested in the real world.

Why a rhizome: within each project the design is a hierarchy, from the root down; between projects it is not. Projects stay connected wherever they genuinely share something, and the method itself learns from every project it builds. Every project is held in the strictest confidence: no data that belongs to one project ever reaches another. A connection that turns out not to hold is not forced: it is flagged and redesigned before anything is undone. The structure directs the work without holding it hostage — a later point can move ahead before an earlier one is closed, as long as nothing is left unconnected — and what is built goes out in short steps that can be reversed, checked independently before it reaches you.

A process also has to be designed against the way people really behave under pressure: the system fixes the order of the work in advance, so that under load the loudest request does not silently become the most important one. That is also why adoption is a phase of the work and not a hand-over: a system is not finished when it works. It is finished when the team uses it.

The work further down this page is part of the same argument. It enters not as a parallel art portfolio but as evidence of how I think, grouped under Systems, Space and Image. The site that holds it was rebuilt around one category, Operations Architecture, and one first step, The Operation Map, keeping the language of the site it replaced: white and black, no shadows, no rounded corners, small editorial type.

Why the trades change and the method does not

What has moved me from one field to another has never been opportunity. It has been the pull of problems I did not yet know how to solve. I have never treated a new field as starting from scratch — I have treated it as an intellectual problem, and I have solved each one the same way. My strength has never been that I am a good architect, or artist, or fine furniture maker, or cook. It is that I can look at a situation head-on, identify the problem, and work out how to build the answer to it. A sculpture never sent me to sculpture school; it sent me to find out how to make it. Operations architecture is the same move, applied to what I now find most interesting: what a business can become with the tools available today.

That move is not a personal knack. It is what I was trained to do. My postgraduate research diploma at the ETSAB in Barcelona was in the criticism and analysis of the project: taking somebody else's finished work, cutting it into its essential parts, reconstructing the design process that produced it — and then being able to explain it, reproduce it and teach it. Read outside architecture, that is the consultant's core skill: you are handed something already built, by someone else, and you have to understand how it came to be that way before you can say anything useful about changing it. A business is a finished work in exactly that sense. That training is also where the Rhizome Method comes from: the same operation run in reverse, to build rather than to read.

Making an operation work without depending on one person

Between April 2025 and September 2026 I was the external architect for a finishes retailer in Santo Domingo, where I surveyed and redesigned the processes that run the business — from first contact with a client through to payment — and built seventeen in-house applications that support them, progressively replacing the legacy system. The full sales cycle, from first client contact through to payment, could once be run end to end by only three people; by the end, anyone on the sales team could. Two commissions are in build today: an administration system for a rental-property portfolio in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and the operating platform of a supplements laboratory — both past the diagnosis stage and now in design and construction. Earlier, in 2020–2021, the production protocols and quality standards of a furniture factory in Punta Cana, as its production manager.

I also build and run software of my own. One is a private application for families, in daily use by households in the Dominican Republic, France, Germany and Puerto Rico, which I have kept redesigning around what its users actually asked for — the same adoption discipline I sell, applied where I cannot hide behind a contract. A second, Space Designer, is a program for designing spaces — kitchens, closets and bathrooms — in use on real commissions.

Directing projects at every scale

Design advisor and coastal-infrastructure project coordinator at the Dominican Republic's Ministry of Tourism (2021–2023), responsible for the technical and design standards of territorial-scale projects and for implementing new design protocols and work-ethics standards within the team. Before that, three years at the practice of AUA Paul Chemetov in Paris (2008–2011) as project manager, on housing, public infrastructure and education, from urban master plans down to the single building. My stage covered concept and project, and my work also included construction follow-up on site; none of the projects was finished when I left the practice. And four years at Estudi Alfa Arquitectes in Barcelona (2004–2008) — social housing, single-family houses, public infrastructure projects — where, as project manager, I took projects from start to finish, including construction follow-up on site.

Running operations, not only designing them

None of this is a detour into food. From 2023 to 2025 I ran LARCA, a pop-up cook-to-order kitchen in Santo Domingo, as chef and owner. And I was made manager of The Klub Kitchen in Berlin for what I could do outside the kitchen — inventory, purchasing, catering logistics and profitability, in a restaurant serving more than four hundred dishes a day (November 2018 – June 2020). That is business management, and it is the same capability I am hired for now: an operation is an operation, whatever it produces. Earlier, in Berlin, I founded and designed Lar Bags, a line of city bags made in direct collaboration with Dominican artisans.

Writing, lecturing, teaching

I have lectured since 2008 and published essays since 2010. Among them my essay About Galerías: an Extinct Species in the Dominican Spatial Fauna (2014), written for Tropical Ghosts Project, a work commissioned by Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York; and, in 2018, the lecture Primitive Being in the c.XXII: Migration · LGBTQ · Artificial Intelligence at UNPHU — I was lecturing on artificial intelligence in 2018. Since 2021 I have taught design studio and theory and criticism of art and architecture at PUCMM, where I now hold the Proyecto VI design studio, and, until December 2025, concurrently at UNPHU.

And a body of work of my own

Two things here, and they are not the same. In 2018, as a freelance designer for Michael Sailstorfer, I designed and built a series of sculptures for several of his exhibitions of that period — the full-scale originals, in cardboard and tape, from which subcontractors produced the casts and the hyperrealist finish — and worked with him on the exhibition design and the selection of works for those shows. My own work is a separate thing, and it is ongoing: drawing, collage and sculpture since 2011. The drawings and collages of 2011–2014 were shown in the first of my three solo exhibitions, O Tender Fellows, at the Centro Cultural de España in Santo Domingo (2014). The other two are Monsters – Working on Absence (The Corridor, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, 2016, curated by Corinne Loisel) and Ausentes (Centro Cultural de España, 2017). Separately: nine months as a resident at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and Prisoners, a fifty-four-metre installation in Dak'Art 2016 — OFF Program, commissioned by IFAA and curated by Sithabile Mlotshwa. It has been exhibited in France, Germany, Senegal, Lithuania and the Dominican Republic. The exhibitions start in 2014 and the work has been continuous since — commissions, exhibitions and projects, to this day. Rialengo No.3, 2015: the drawing for a sculpture built that same year — now the mark of Yuri Leonardo Works.

Employment has never interrupted the independent practice: since 2003 the two have run in parallel. I work from Santo Domingo, in Spanish, English and French.

Current Portfolio

Systems 5

SPACE DESIGNER From the interior to the module and its site: one generic core, each client a configuration
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SPACE DESIGNER

/ From the interior to the module and its site: one generic core, each client a configuration /

Space Designer is a design and sales programme that takes a space from the interior to the module and its site. For kitchens, closets and bathrooms, it lets a salesperson with basic product knowledge produce a complete, priced proposal without an expert; for a prefabricated pavilion, it structures the module, its support kit, water, energy and service core, and switches the same model between forest and coast. It designs from zero or from an existing SketchUp model, and from one project source it produces the quotation priced to the cent, the layout and installation drawings, the factory breakdown, the product list and render prompts anchored to the model — client documents and workshop documents that never contradict each other. It never guesses: a missing figure is flagged, and bad input stops the run instead of failing silently. One generic core serves any number of clients, each with its own branch of a YLW finish library of 42 models and 209 finishes, and every stage is checked by an independent test before it ships.

Problem

Selling a kitchen, a closet or a bathroom usually waits for a designer, and when price, drawings and images come from different files, they contradict each other. The salesperson cannot close alone, and the client's documents and the workshop's drift apart.

Functions

  • Designs from scratch: which layouts fit a room, by clearance standards, before any model exists.
  • Draws the plan and places each work zone along the run.
  • Reads an existing SketchUp model by script, in one pass: no dimension is typed by hand.
  • Generates plans and elevations from the model.
  • Prices every piece from the manufacturer's catalogue, with each factor traced to its source; where the catalogue grid and a drawn width disagree, the catalogue governs the price and the drawing keeps the geometry.
  • Prices kitchens module by module, with side panels, plinths and installation, and flags inconsistencies in an existing quote.
  • Measures and prices worktops by surface, layer and material.
  • Lists every element by room for the client.
  • Breaks every sold item into manufacturable parts and the factory order.
  • Carries the job through installation, logistics and handover.
  • Produces the kitchen dossier and its specification.
  • Assembles the print-ready dossier: drawings, element list, quotation and images.
  • Generates render anchors from the model, so the image engine cannot invent geometry, and one image brief per view, every brief carrying the same invariants: a correction reaches every view.
  • Cross-checks every view of a project against the others before delivery.
  • Reads a manufacturer's PDF price list into the catalogue and declares a gap instead of guessing a price.
  • Designs bathrooms with the same core.
  • Structures a project as one prefabricated module, transported finished and craned into place, standing on a support kit chosen for its site: raised frames in a forest, a low base on piles by the sea.
  • Draws the water of the whole site: every roof collects rain into a shared cistern, an elevated tank feeds each unit by gravity, and waste runs to one common septic system.
  • Sizes an off-grid supply from the model: solar panels, battery storage that grows in blocks, an inverter and a backup generator.
  • Gathers tank, cistern, pump, batteries and generator into one prefabricated service core, out of the guests' sight.
  • Lays out a site of any number of units around its service core and networks.
  • Prices a site in four layers (module, site works, shared core divided by the number of units, design), so every unit added lowers the cost of the others; optional air conditioning is one switch.
  • Switches the same model between forest and coast: support kit, water treatment and salt protection follow the site.
  • Serves any manufacturer or retailer by configuration alone.
  • Hands each client a byte-identical branch of the finish library, refuses to branch twice, and states on every output which library, and of which date, it read.
  • Issues print and video formats from the approved images, and prints straight to PDF.
  • Checks the package before anything is issued, and stops with a reason instead of issuing a broken document.

How it works

One generic core that knows no client by name; each client is a configuration with its own branch of the YLW finish library, handed over on delivery. A guard test fails if any client reaches the core. Every empty field is shown as pending and counted, never filled with a generic. Each stage (plans, prices, lists, render anchors, dossier) has its own test bench, and the benches are falsified: a deliberately broken input must make them fail. Supplier terms stay in the workshop documents; the client reads the client's words.

Two services. Space Designer as a service: the proposal, drawings and images under your own brand, with an image-use agreement for your portfolio. And, through Systems consulting, a sibling of Space Designer built for your company, on your catalogue and your process. The software itself is not sold.

Scenarios

  • A furniture manufacturer hands the program to its dealer network, each dealer a branch of the same library.
  • A finishes retailer lets any salesperson close a kitchen, closet or bathroom without a designer.
  • An interior design studio quotes made-to-measure furniture from its own model.
  • A developer offers kitchens and closets by apartment type, with a price and an image before anything is built.
  • A hospitality developer places a site of pavilions in a forest or on a coast, with its water, energy and a price per unit before anything is built.

Evidence

  • In use on real commissions since August 2026.
  • A delivered closet commission reproduced by the program: 14 of 14 plans identical to the delivered ones, the 122-line price list to the cent, the 67-line element list, 17 of 17 render anchors and the 15-page dossier.
  • A delivered kitchen reproduced module by module (30 modules) and worktop by worktop, matching what was delivered.
  • The full chain runs green, 16 of 16 stages, and design from scratch passes 62 tests (run on 9 October 2026).
  • Thirteen outputs verified by execution on 8 September 2026 and again on 6 October 2026, among them 63 of 63 mutants caught and a model check of 169 with no failure.
  • Kitchen pricing passes 23 checks; run on a quote already delivered, it found five inconsistencies.
  • Closet pricing catches 13 of 13 deliberately planted faults; input and output validation passes 31 of 31 checks (October 2026).
  • See it applied: Pavilion →, one module in a forest and on a coast.
SITE CONTROL One set of data for the whole site team, and gates that prevent paying for work covered without being checked

SITE CONTROL

/ One set of data for the whole site team, and gates that prevent paying for work covered without being checked /

Site Control guides, records and centralises every process of a construction site, from construction drawings to handover, so that the whole team works from the same data and the program guards against the human errors that a large volume of information and long processes produce. It opens on what is due today, on desktop and on site, and reads the formats a site uses: BIM models and issues, budgets, schedules, rebar schedules and spreadsheets. It prevents paying for work covered without being checked and, at the next stage, the pour itself until it is released. Every record is linked to its place in the model, reports are issued for every role, and each company configures its catalogue, roles and users.

Problem

On a construction site, drawings, budgets, schedules and site records live apart, and a large volume of information over a long process produces human errors. The first one to prevent: work certified and paid for after it has been covered, without anyone checking it.

Functions

  • Guides, records and centralises every construction process on one set of data.
  • Opens on what is due today, on desktop and on site.
  • Reads BC3, BCF, BVBS, CSV, IFC, Presto, Project and XLSX files.
  • Keeps one copy of every record, with its owner: the version in force and the full history of who did what, in which role and when.
  • Reopens a point already crossed when a new version or a contradiction appears; nothing is released until a role with authority chooses the way out.
  • Shows every role the same data, and each one what is due for it now; each person enters with a PIN, and every act needs the authority of its role.
  • Prevents certifying and paying for work covered without being checked.
  • Prevents the pour itself until it is released.
  • Runs several sites at once.
  • Links each record to its place in the model.
  • Keeps, for each type of item, its scheme: model, views, render, breakdown and installation.
  • Issues reports for every role.
  • Is configured per company: catalogue, roles and users.

How it works

One calculation engine over one set of data. Each connector translates a format into that data and carries its own tests. What the program must prevent is a design decision written into it, by stages, not a setting someone can switch off. The app is built on a test project with no data from a real site, and is held by a smoke test, by test benches for each line of the design and by mutation tests on the engine.

Scenarios

  • A mid-sized contractor with several sites and a single control manager.
  • A site supervisor who certifies the work of third parties.
  • A developer who audits payments against real progress.
  • The oversight of public works.

Evidence

  • Smoke test, 53 of 53; engine and design benches, 27 of 27, 9 of 9 and 31 of 31; connectors, 27 of 27 across eight formats (measured on 7 October 2026).
  • Mutation tests on the engine that catch planted faults.
  • Desktop and phone interfaces, with printed formats, on a test project.
  • Designed from a root sentence written on 15 September 2026.
OPERATIONS PLATFORM A company's operations in its own app: data entered once, status calculated, every gap declared

OPERATIONS PLATFORM

/ A company's operations in its own app: data entered once, status calculated, every gap declared /

The Operations Platform carries the operations of an organisation (sales, clients, projects, collections, inventory, contracts, fees) into its own app and intranet, designed for how that organisation works. Each piece of data is entered once and appears wherever it is needed. Status is calculated, never typed; what has not been measured says so. Every missing piece of data appears as a declared gap, exported to whoever must supply it. Permissions are enforced in the database, not hidden in the screen, and each person enters with their own PIN. The in-app help and the printed manual come from one source. It works offline, automates recurring entries, and each organisation gets its own platform from one tested kit.

Problem

Small organisations run on messages, spreadsheets and handwritten ledgers. The same figure is typed in several places, the status of a sale, a property or a payment is whatever someone last wrote, and a missing figure goes unnoticed.

Functions

  • Takes each piece of data once and shows it in every module that needs it.
  • Calculates status instead of letting anyone type it; what has not been measured reads «not measured», never green; a manual override is labelled as such.
  • Names who made every cash movement.
  • Stamps deadlines on the server, not on the user's device, and deactivates records instead of deleting them.
  • Turns every missing piece of data into a declared gap and exports the list to whoever must supply it.
  • Enforces permissions by role in the database, not in the screen.
  • Gives each person their own PIN.
  • Generates the in-app help and the printed manual from one source, so they say the same thing; no change reaches production without updating the tutorials it affects.
  • Works offline.
  • Puts the variable data of contract templates in fields, so no one searches nine pages for a figure.
  • Keeps one registry from the first lead to the last invoice, with a leads inbox.
  • Moves a lead to a client without retyping.
  • Automates recurring entries and scales as the operation grows.
  • Gives each organisation its own platform from one tested kit: data adapter, gap engine, database roles, PIN.

How it works

New platforms are designed from one root sentence and one objective before anything is built, and take shape as small applications over one database, typically a phone app to record and a desktop intranet to compare and report. Rules are held by automated test harnesses; on most platforms, mutation scripts break the app on purpose to prove that the tests fail when they should. Every screen shown outside uses demonstration data, never real names.

Scenarios

  • A family business that runs on spreadsheets and messages.
  • A school or an academy that collects its fees by hand.
  • A property owner with a portfolio and no administrative staff.
  • A professional practice that needs its own registry of projects.

Evidence

  • A construction-finishes retailer: a sales cycle that only three people could run end to end; today any member of the sales team can run it, on seventeen in-house applications, from first contact to payment, progressively replacing a legacy system.
  • A supplements laboratory: one mobile app for the whole business, in use while it is being built; every cash movement names the partner who made it; its help and its 15-page printed manual come from one source.
  • A private rental portfolio under three regimes: a phone app and a desktop intranet on one code base, with 577 automated checks in ten test harnesses (last recorded run, September 2026).
  • A private school: first an instrument of seventeen modules in which every missing piece of data appears as a declared gap, exported by recipient; since October 2026, a live database.
  • A private investment portfolio: an app of eight tabs with 142 automated checks and a script that breaks it on purpose (run on 1 September 2026).
  • Proyecto VI, an architecture design studio at PUCMM: each submission, critique and reference has one place; late submissions are stamped by the server, and students are deactivated, never deleted.
  • YLW runs on it. YLW-Central is the practice's own registry of every project, from the first lead to the last invoice; the project index, the pipeline and the leads inbox are in use, and the rest is drawn before it is built. Two roles, owner and guest, are enforced in the database, not in the screen, and row-level security is active on all nine of its tables (measured on 9 October 2026).
FAMILY HUB For families living in different countries: if a grandparent cannot publish alone from a phone, it is badly designed

FAMILY HUB

/ For families living in different countries: if a grandparent cannot publish alone from a phone, it is badly designed /

A private web space for families whose members live in different countries: a daily log, a map of journeys, albums, one profile per member. The design threshold was written in one line — if the youngest member or a grandparent cannot publish alone from a phone, it is badly designed — and the bar is publishing in under a minute. Each entry is signed by its author, written in the author's own language and translated automatically into the other two. There are no likes and no metrics, and nothing can be indexed. It is in daily use in the Dominican Republic, France, Germany and Puerto Rico.

Problem

Families whose members live in different countries see each other rarely, and what they share ends up scattered across chats and social networks: in different languages, unsigned, measured in likes and open to indexing. And a grandparent or a child cannot always publish on their own.

Functions

  • Gives each family its own space, isolated from every other family in the database.
  • Lets each member write in their own language (Spanish, French or German) and read the others' entries translated into theirs.
  • Publishes from a phone in under a minute, and installs on the phone's home screen like an app.
  • Keeps a daily log, with back-dated entries for earlier memories; chapters and a yearly archive; albums by place; a travel map whose stops link to their days; one profile per member.
  • Runs polls by topic, with several questions each; comments as a family conversation, retranslated when edited; events and sub-events with their own times and places; and a summary of what is new since your last visit.
  • Locks again with the PIN after ten minutes without activity, and carries its own help in each language.
  • Signs every entry with its author.
  • Lets each member enter with their own PIN; profiles exist by invitation only.
  • Has no likes, no metrics and nothing that can be indexed.

How it works

One code base serves every family. Each family is isolated by row-level security in the database, and a test proves that one family cannot read another's entries; a second test keeps the three languages of the interface in step. Each entry is translated automatically, and a toggle shows it in the reader's language. The design threshold is written in one line: if the youngest member or a grandparent cannot publish alone from a phone, it is badly designed.

Scenarios

  • A family with members in several countries.
  • A closed community, such as former classmates or an association.
  • The private diary of a long journey or of a move abroad.

Evidence

  • In production since July 2026; five families today.
  • In daily use in the Dominican Republic, France, Germany and Puerto Rico, and redesigned according to what its users asked.
CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS ENGINE Quantities, shop sheets and dossiers read from the 3D model: every billed piece drawn where it goes

CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS ENGINE

/ Quantities, shop sheets and dossiers read from the 3D model: every billed piece drawn where it goes /

The Construction Documents Engine turns a 3D model into the documents a site and a workshop work from: quantity tables room by room, tabloid shop sheets with every dimension read from the model, dimensioned isometric sheets, fabrication sheets for metalwork and quotation dossiers per trade. Hangers and supports are set out at a fixed spacing and every bar is cut to length; board usage is optimised across each room. Nothing is guessed: a figure without a source blocks the issue, and a test rejects the document if any element appears without its supports. Supplier terms become the client's words only at print, and the document stops if one leaks. Each project is a configuration of one engine.

Problem

A contractor has to order a system (a suspended ceiling, partitions, metalwork, joinery) without shortfall or surplus, and defend the figure to whoever reviews it. Quantities typed from drawings by hand cannot be traced back, and without every piece drawn where it goes, the count is only theory.

Functions

  • Derives quantity tables, room by room, from the model's scenes.
  • Sets out hangers and supports at a fixed spacing and cuts every bar to length.
  • Lays out the ceiling grid symmetrically and optimises board usage across a room, with the waste tabled.
  • Prices each item with a reference price and the supplier's code; open data points are declared on the drawing, never invented.
  • Produces tabloid shop sheets (11 × 17) with every dimension read from the model.
  • Generates dimensioned isometric sheets and a quotation dossier per trade.
  • Draws fabrication sheets for metalwork straight from the model.
  • Rejects the document if any element appears without its supports.
  • Blocks the issue while any figure lacks a source.
  • Checks every issue before it leaves: the PDF against its source sentence by sentence, labels outside the sheet, overlaps, and drawing scales against their labels.
  • Translates supplier terms into the client's words and stops if one leaks.
  • Serves any model and any project by configuration, on any machine.

How it works

The model is read by script, never by eye: one dump of the 3D model (parts, boxes, scenes, materials) feeds every sheet, table and figure, and where a quantity cannot come from the model it is set out by rule and drawn. Each generator carries its own checks; the critical gates have test benches and are falsified: a planted fault must make the bench fail. On the main commissions, two independent reviewers diagnose each revision blind, and their findings are crossed before anything is issued.

Scenarios

  • A drywall and ceiling contractor that needs quantities it can defend to the site's cost control.
  • A metal or joinery workshop that receives fabrication sheets without redrawing them.
  • A practice that prices each trade from the model before a budget exists.
  • An audit of a third party's quantities: the model against their take-off.

Evidence

  • Suspended ceilings of a school under construction: 451 sheets at 11 × 17, delivered on 28 September 2026, room by room and detail by detail, with 646 hanger rods spaced evenly along each main runner, none carrying more than 1.44 m² of ceiling, and every rod billed in the tables drawn where it goes. Earlier revisions were delivered on 21 September 2026 (128 sheets, 775 rods) and on 25 September 2026 (254 sheets, after an independent review that left no open finding).
  • Every drawing at the exact scale it is labelled: 40 views that deviated by more than 1 % were measured and corrected.
  • The current revision holds its test bench at 127 of 127 checks, with 123 of 123 planted faults caught; a first variant, at 108 of 108 and 94 of 94.
  • The gate «every suspended ceiling is hung» catches 3 of 3 planted faults (run on 21 September 2026).
  • Fabrication sheets for luminaire brackets drawn from the model, with two falsification benches.
  • Four kitchen types for one project: dimensions declared once in code, 282 pieces priced with no price gap, and a supplier-term guard proved by falsification.
  • Quotation dossiers per trade for a house remodelling, with isometric sheets dimensioned from the model; the overlap check, falsified, caught six real overlaps.
  • Used on five commissions in 2026.

Other Projects

Space 11
JEWELLERY STORE AND FRONT SCULPTURE A shop and its front sculpture designed as one project: my first major commission as a sculptor in the Dominican Republic
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JEWELLERY STORE AND FRONT SCULPTURE

/ A shop and its front sculpture designed as one project: my first major commission as a sculptor in the Dominican Republic /

A jewellery store in a shopping mall, designed with José M. Martínez as one project with the sculpture on its front. The plan divides the unit into three rooms — shop, office, storeroom — with four new block walls, one of which carries the front display. Inside: an L-shaped showcase in wood and glass, the back of the shop clad in vertical wood panels, a suspended ceiling of perforated steel, and a palette of black, natural wood and gold. On the front: a five-metre sculpture in wood, CNC-cut, in three pieces, which I designed and built. It was my first major commission as a sculptor in the Dominican Republic.

LAR BAGS A bag that goes completely flat when empty, made with Dominican artisans to bring their craft to international markets
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LAR BAGS

/ A bag that goes completely flat when empty, made with Dominican artisans to bring their craft to international markets /

A line of urban bags in three models, made with Dominican artisans. My text for the project opens with a scene in Paris: a man on a bike, an empty shoulder bag folded around his body like a jacket. The response is a large bag that goes completely flat when empty, sized for a whole day of working tools. The making was part of the project: the bags were made in direct collaboration with Dominican artisans, bringing the quality of their craft to international markets.

A PROPOSAL TO INHABIT The Dominican dwelling, from the minimal traditional unit to a coherent residential space: a question that returns in About Galerías
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A PROPOSAL TO INHABIT

/ The Dominican dwelling, from the minimal traditional unit to a coherent residential space: a question that returns in About Galerías /

Graduation thesis at UNPHU, Santo Domingo, 2003, awarded at the 2006 edition of the Santo Domingo International Architecture Biennial. The problem it set itself was the Dominican dwelling: how to move from the minimal traditional unit to a coherent residential space for the modern Dominican individual. Through a group of essays and exercises, the thesis proposed an abstract reinterpretation of the relationship between individual and habitat — a dwelling that takes into its core the temporality of present-day life and the cycles that define its needs, away from the traditional symbols of the twentieth century. The Dominican dwelling returns eleven years later, in the essay About Galerías (2014), as the loss of the gallery.

HOLIDAY VILLA Repairs before going onto short-stay platforms; its expense record later served as an approximate measure of suppliers' lead times for another house
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HOLIDAY VILLA

/ Repairs before going onto short-stay platforms; its expense record later served as an approximate measure of suppliers' lead times for another house /

A villa in Punta Cana, on a golf course, needed repairs before going onto short-stay platforms: paint, leaks, electrical work. Its setting is part of what it offers, and the photographs take in the fairway as well as the house. The brief set a target guest and asked for a durable fit-out with low maintenance, and for professional photographs that would show the qualities of the space. The works were completed in 2026, and the photographs were taken by Moisés De Jesús. Its expense record later served as an approximate, payment-to-payment measure of suppliers' lead times for another house's works programme.

REMODELLING OF A SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE A house to let to six to ten guests; the design starts from what was actually built, not from what was planned
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REMODELLING OF A SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE

/ A house to let to six to ten guests; the design starts from what was actually built, not from what was planned /

A house in Santo Domingo, in very good condition, was to be adapted for rental to executives and families of six to ten guests. The first works, planned as minor repairs, were in fact the demolition of a gazebo and the construction of a platform for a spa; the design starts from what was actually built, not from what was planned. The spa is now to be moved, and the current stage is the garden around it.

JUAN BOSCH CITY A plan traced from its doors — competition, 2013
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JUAN BOSCH CITY

/ A plan traced from its doors — competition, 2013 /

Master-plan competition, 2013, for a new city in Santo Domingo; project architect, with Juan Mubarak as project director. The site's perimeter is formed by a series of peripheral elements that press its limits toward the geometric centre; the result is a polygon whose vertices act as doors to the rest of the city and to the interior of the country. The inner structure of the plan is traced by connecting those doors. The plan is based on a system in which every element can hold several complementary positions at once: ensuring coherence between the functioning and the development of its immediate context, and constantly regenerating itself to adapt to future territorial realities, so guaranteeing the city's continuum in time.

PORTABLE HOUSE A residential project shown as a study model in plexiglas and tape, the same material as the GHV 2050 model
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PORTABLE HOUSE

/ A residential project shown as a study model in plexiglas and tape, the same material as the GHV 2050 model /

Study model for a residential project commissioned by a private client in Santo Domingo, as architect-in-charge. The model, 50 × 30 × 15 cm, is built in plexiglas and tape. It was awarded at the 2006 edition of the Santo Domingo International Architecture Biennial, as part of the thesis A Proposal to Inhabit. The model for Greater Helsinki Vision 2050 (2007) is also in plexiglas.

GREATER HELSINKI VISION 2050 A ring for a dispersed region — competition, 2007
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GREATER HELSINKI VISION 2050

/ A ring for a dispersed region — competition, 2007 /

Competition entry, 2007, for a 2050 vision of the Greater Helsinki region, as architect-in-charge with the architects Laura Barbieri and Eugenio Mangi. The region sits on a transversal axis, from western Uusimaa to the Russian border, that splits at Helsinki into two national routes; it had grown radially from the city, losing importance and density as it moved away. To reduce that dispersion, the proposal sews the two routes together with two axes, two different ways of connecting Mäntsälä and Helsinki. Superposed, they draw a possible relation between the scales of data exchange — global, national, regional — and those of territory. The municipalities form a ring, which allows significant natural areas to be drawn inside it.

SAN ISIDRO Triangular open-air pockets on a difficult site, each giving its part of the courtyard a scale of its own
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SAN ISIDRO

/ Triangular open-air pockets on a difficult site, each giving its part of the courtyard a scale of its own /

Commissioned study, 2013, for 240 apartments in Santo Domingo, for Shearly Investment Group; architect-in-charge, with Juan Mubarak as project director. The site has a difficult shape and is bounded on three of its four sides by an avenue and two streets. The problem was to distribute the 240 apartments so that they answer their urban situation, relate to the low-density buildings around them and, at the same time, hold a structured dialogue with the interior of the site. The project opens a series of open-air pockets, triangle-shaped, each giving a different scale and identity to its part of the resulting courtyard — a reflection of the diversity of scale in the surrounding area.

MARCANO MUSEUM A spiral among 107 trees — commissioned study, 2011–2012
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MARCANO MUSEUM

/ A spiral among 107 trees — commissioned study, 2011–2012 /

Commissioned study, 2011–2012, for a national museum devoted to the lifework of the Dominican scientist Eugenio de Jesús Marcano, on a site within the Botanical Garden of Santo Domingo; architect-in-charge, with Shaney Peña Gómez as associate architect. The main idea was a place that guides visitors through the exhibition pavilions while they remain in contact with the existing vegetation. The project is an open installation set among a family of 107 trees: a horizontal spiral that organises the exhibition around three courtyards. The north side opens entirely to the garden; the south façade is a long vertical garden that filters the Caribbean sun. Every tree already on the site is kept.

OBJECT BORDER A border read as a region, 2012–2013
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OBJECT BORDER

/ A border read as a region, 2012–2013 /

Study, 2012–2013, for a new Dominican–Haitian border region; architect-in-charge, with Shaney Peña Gómez as associate architect. The line read as the border is a graphic representation of one aspect of a larger reality: the centre of a region more complex than a political symbol. Haiti and the Dominican Republic develop outward from their capitals, which leaves the border as the furthest point of each country and penalises its growth. The study identifies the infrastructure that would give this region economic and political autonomy in proportion to its size and, in a second phase, a supranational connection to a global context. It follows Cartography of an Object (UNPHU, 2008), a workshop on the same border.

Image 13
ON ABSENCE After the Paris attacks, twenty-six anonymous portraits rather than the known victims: a memory more than a likeness
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ON ABSENCE

/ After the Paris attacks, twenty-six anonymous portraits rather than the known victims: a memory more than a likeness /

Twenty-six portraits in pastel, charcoal and graphite, drawn at the Cité internationale des arts in the months after the Paris attacks of November 2015. The question: if the attacks stirred patriotism and nationalism among the local-born, what did they stir among immigrants? I drew anonymous people rather than the known victims, keeping a distance that lets the viewer imagine the person could be oneself, a friend, a relative. Pastel works against the immediacy of the realistic portrait: the figure stays behind a blur, and the drawing carries a memory more than a likeness.

PART IN STYLE Two studies from Beloved Veils taken to 360 × 240 cm on wood: memory and history as tangible bodies
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PART IN STYLE

/ Two studies from Beloved Veils taken to 360 × 240 cm on wood: memory and history as tangible bodies /

Two drawings, 360 × 240 cm each, in ink, graphite and polyurethane on wood, commissioned by the Centro Cultural de España in Santo Domingo and shown in my solo exhibition Ausentes (2017). They come from Beloved Veils: two of its twenty-four preliminary studies became this project. The text asks what happens when someone is forced to leave a country and start again elsewhere: memory and history, it says, stop being unconscious and become 'conscious and tangible bodies'.

RIALENGO NO.3 A block of wood cut in sections: the core, and the three moulds that carving usually throws away, kept and shown
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RIALENGO NO.3

/ A block of wood cut in sections: the core, and the three moulds that carving usually throws away, kept and shown /

A block of wood conceived to be cut in sections. Inside it, a core that reads as a traditional sculpture; around it, three outer pieces that work as its moulds — what carving usually throws away, kept and shown. Each of the four volumes is built from four hundred sheets of 1.2 mm wood, each drawn one by one, laser-cut and assembled by hand, from a set of fifteen section drawings. Rialengo is the Dominican word for the animals that live in the street. It is one of my first works on absence. It is the origin of the YLW logo.

PRISONERS A cartography of an informal urban fabric — La Medina, Dakar, 2016
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PRISONERS

/ A cartography of an informal urban fabric — La Medina, Dakar, 2016 /

The brief was to map the historic sector of La Medina, in Dakar. The response was a series of informal maps, traced — in my word, written — in nails, string and spray, from the external view of a first-time visitor: a red installation fifty-four metres long. It was commissioned by IFAA, curated by Sithabile Mlotshwa, and shown in the OFF Program of Dak'Art 2016. Its central sentence — informal maps as a way to recognise a territory and to pass tradition on — returns almost word for word in my texts of 2018 and 2025.

STUDIO MICHAEL SAILSTORFER Full-scale originals in cardboard and tape, exact enough for another hand to turn them into the sculpture
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STUDIO MICHAEL SAILSTORFER

/ Full-scale originals in cardboard and tape, exact enough for another hand to turn them into the sculpture /

In 2018 Michael Sailstorfer engaged me as a freelance designer. I designed and built a series of sculptures for several of his exhibitions of that period — the full-scale originals, in cardboard and tape, from which subcontractors produced the casts and the hyperrealist finish — and worked with the artist on the exhibition design and the selection of works for those shows. Those exhibitions are his. My workbook records the full-scale casting models made for Brainspotting, Avlskarl Gallery, Copenhagen, 2018. The work is representation in its most literal sense: a model exact enough for another hand to turn it into the sculpture.

O TENDER FELLOWS Two Dominican questions, drawn until the figures exceed any notion of race and origin: the migrant who returns in my later work
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O TENDER FELLOWS

/ Two Dominican questions, drawn until the figures exceed any notion of race and origin: the migrant who returns in my later work /

Eight pencil drawings and fourteen collages on two Dominican questions: the sale of the land at Bahía de las Águilas, and the relationship between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The title is a line from Allen Ginsberg's Wichita Vortex Sutra. In my statement, the way the pieces are built seeks to abstract the universal side of two local themes: the figures are transformed until they exceed any notion of race and origin — individuals from neither here nor there. The migrant returns as the subject of later work: On Absence (2016), the proposal Sentient Mansan (2018), '15562' (2025).

SOUNDS AND SILENCE A silent object that becomes an instrument when it is played: the object as an answer to a text by Barthes
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SOUNDS AND SILENCE

/ A silent object that becomes an instrument when it is played: the object as an answer to a text by Barthes /

A silent object that becomes an instrument when it is played. Built in wood, piano strings, aluminium and spray, 150 × 75 × 255 cm, it was made for a fifteen-minute performance with saxophone, Chinese harp and double bass, on a composition by Luise Volkmann, in the Auditorium of the Cité internationale des arts. The starting point was Roland Barthes' text Racine est Racine: Volkmann answered it by translating Charlie Parker into her own language; I answered it with the object. Two years later, the proposal Sentient Mansan again ends with a performance on an instrument of my own design.

HOMOPOLITICUS One series across three media: pastel, collage, and graphite on wood
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HOMOPOLITICUS

/ One series across three media: pastel, collage, and graphite on wood /

A series across three media. In 2013: three drawings in pastel and graphite, 140 × 90 cm, and six collages on paper, the collages commissioned by the Centro Cultural de España in Santo Domingo and shown in O Tender Fellows (2014). In 2016, on wood: two drawings in graphite and pierre noire, 130 × 90 cm, and one in graphite, 80 × 120 cm (Berlin, 2016).

FAR Working on memory: one beloved person, drawn and redrawn from memory over ten years — almost forty studies of what is kept and what is lost
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FAR

/ Working on memory: one beloved person, drawn and redrawn from memory over ten years — almost forty studies of what is kept and what is lost /

One beloved person, drawn and redrawn from memory over and over again: almost forty studies since a first phase in 2014–2017, and a current phase begun in 2024 — acrylic, ink, graphite and polyurethane on wood, 122 × 180 cm. Each study answers a different need and is a different way of remembering the same individual. The question behind it is what migration does to memory, which he frames as «the multiple lives (and deaths) of a single individual during his/hers own migratory movements». It is an evolution of the initial project, and it is ongoing.

SELECTED DRAWINGS | 2011—2015 Collage notebooks, portraits and studies on paper and wood
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SELECTED DRAWINGS | 2011—2015

/ Collage notebooks, portraits and studies on paper and wood /

The drawing practice that began in 2011, under the title I gave it on my former website. Collage notebooks of 2012 (Scrapbook No.12) and the collages AUA (details), of the same year. Large sheets of 2013 in pastel and graphite, 140 × 90 cm — portraits, a self-portrait, Fail again, fail better, L'Imprudent — and, at 70 × 100 cm, Paisaje I. Four Études of 2014 in pastel, charcoal and graphite, 60 × 45 cm. A pair of portraits burnt into wood by laser pyrography, 120 × 80 cm, in 2014. Portraits of 2015 in pastel, charcoal and graphite, 120 × 80 cm.

COLONNE DE LA PAIX An outdoor sculpture in collaboration with artist Malam; suspended; not installed
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COLONNE DE LA PAIX

/ An outdoor sculpture in collaboration with artist Malam; suspended; not installed /

An outdoor sculpture for Paris by the Cameroonian artist Malam, commissioned by La Maison de l'Agriculture for the centenary of the Cité Universitaire and set to be built in the summer of 2025: a column 400 × 60 cm in cast resin and corten iron. The work is Malam's. My role was Technical Consultant: to assure the technical aspects of the construction, installation and perennial permanence on site. The project was suspended; the sculpture was not installed. The collaboration did not begin there: in February and March 2016 I worked in Malam's studio at the Cité internationale des arts.

SENTIENT MANSAN A proposal on migration in three parts — veils, sculptures, a performance — joined by a fourth element, continuous sound
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SENTIENT MANSAN

/ A proposal on migration in three parts — veils, sculptures, a performance — joined by a fourth element, continuous sound /

A proposal, not a built work. Its subject is migration across three moments: the first prehistoric movements out of Africa, the slave ships bound for the Americas, and migration today. It has three parts. Beloved Veils: twenty-four drawn veils of one person. Ruminants: large sculptures cast in concrete, with suspended cylinders, rolling spheres and chains striking their inner walls, and microphones inside. Growl: a sound performance on an instrument to be designed and built. In the proposal, the continuous sound is the fourth element that joins the three, in a room lined with construction plastic.

BELOVED VEILS One person, drawn and redrawn over four years, 2018
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BELOVED VEILS

/ One person, drawn and redrawn over four years, 2018 /

Twenty-four veils of one person, drawn and redrawn from memory over four years, each a different way of remembering the same individual. As the face disappears, the subject loses gender, race and age and becomes 'the memory of everything else reflected on the portrait of one specific individual'. I call the veils informal cartographies — the term of my maps of territory. A first phase of twelve drawings in ink and graphite on paper, up to 300 × 300 cm, remains in study development. It was to be one of the three parts of the proposal Sentient Mansan.

Education

  • Advanced Studies Diploma (DEA) in Project Criticism and Analysis ETSAB, Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona 2005–2008
  • Master's in Architectural Design ETSAB, Barcelona 2004–2005
  • Architect UNPHU, Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Santo Domingo 1998–2003 graduation thesis Una Propuesta para Habitar, which won an award at the 2006 edition of the Santo Domingo International Architecture Biennial
  • Fine Furniture Making Diploma (CAP), furniture design and making École Boulle, Paris 2014–2015