Lys Villalba (Madrid, 1981) is an architect, educator and independent researcher, graduate of the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid ETSAM (M.Arch 2008) and Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s GSAPP (2016-2017). Her work explores the intersection of architecture and the social, technological, and political realms, and was nominated for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative 2016.
Her research The City Writes Itself received the Spanish Royal Academy of Fine Arts/Arquia fellowship 2016, the Matadero Madrid/Tokyo Wonder Site grant 2015, and was exhibited at the Japan Pavilion 16th Venice Biennale 2018.
Villalba is cofounder of Zoohaus Collective, whose project Collective Intelligences has developed fieldwork research and prototyping projects in 15 countries, in collaboration with universities, cultural institutions and local collectives; and has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna.
Villalba is a professor at IED Madrid since 2012, and has been a Visiting Proffesor at different architecture
schools worldwide, such as CUINDA Bangkok (Thailand), Keio University Tokyo (Japan), Lebanese American University New York (USA), Universidad Javeriana Bogotá (Colombia), FAU Arquitectura Santiago (Chile); and a guest juror and lecturer at Harvard GSD Tokyo, University of Virginia, Bartlett School of Architecture, ETSAM, and Columbia GSAPP, among other institutions. Her works and articles have been published in MoMA Ed., Architectural Design, Damdi, El País, World Architecture magazine, Urbanism and Architecture, Arquitectura Viva, Domus web, etc.
Previously she worked as an architect at Foreign Office Architects in London (UK), Herzog & de Meuron in
Basel (Switzerland), Izaskun Chinchilla Architects in Madrid (Spain), and was a member of the editorial board of Arquitectura Viva magazine in Madrid (Spain).
Her research The City Writes Itself received the Spanish Royal Academy of Fine Arts/Arquia fellowship 2016, the Matadero Madrid/Tokyo Wonder Site grant 2015, and was exhibited at the Japan Pavilion 16th Venice Biennale 2018.
Villalba is cofounder of Zoohaus Collective, whose project Collective Intelligences has developed fieldwork research and prototyping projects in 15 countries, in collaboration with universities, cultural institutions and local collectives; and has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna.
Villalba is a professor at IED Madrid since 2012, and has been a Visiting Proffesor at different architecture
schools worldwide, such as CUINDA Bangkok (Thailand), Keio University Tokyo (Japan), Lebanese American University New York (USA), Universidad Javeriana Bogotá (Colombia), FAU Arquitectura Santiago (Chile); and a guest juror and lecturer at Harvard GSD Tokyo, University of Virginia, Bartlett School of Architecture, ETSAM, and Columbia GSAPP, among other institutions. Her works and articles have been published in MoMA Ed., Architectural Design, Damdi, El País, World Architecture magazine, Urbanism and Architecture, Arquitectura Viva, Domus web, etc.
Previously she worked as an architect at Foreign Office Architects in London (UK), Herzog & de Meuron in
Basel (Switzerland), Izaskun Chinchilla Architects in Madrid (Spain), and was a member of the editorial board of Arquitectura Viva magazine in Madrid (Spain).
