The Portmanteau Exhibit: PLAY WITH THE RULES at the Priscilla Fowler Fine Art Gallery. Las Vegas, NV. 2019.
PROXIIMA is an interdisciplinary and multi-scalar design practice led by Alberto de Salvatierra based in Calgary, AB [Canada].
Our work seeks to engage with civilization via playful—and metamodern—imaginaries. Tempered by ecology and Earth-minded sustainability, we seek to re-image and re-frame disciplinary attitudes of societal systems and urbanization. Our projects aim to play with architectural representation while embracing the possibilities of color.
Alberto de Salvatierra. Self-Portrait. 2020.
Alberto de Salvatierra is Founding Principal of PROXIIMA and Associate Professor of Urbanism and Data in Architecture at the University of Calgary School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape (SAPL). He is also Founder and Director of the Center for Civilization, and an alumnus of the Global Shapers Community—an initiative by the World Economic Forum based in Geneva, Switzerland.
A transdisciplinary polymath, designer, and urbanist, Alberto’s research agenda and professional work is organized around the pursuit of six simultaneous streams of inquiry—intersections between the city and morphology, ecology, pedagogy, technology, mythology, and civilization. His work has been published widely and exhibited both domestically and abroad. Previously, he’s been part of the Harvard Kennedy School’s inaugural STS (Science, Technology and Society) program on Expertise, Trust and Democracy, and an invited panelist and delegate at the United Nations.
Alberto is the past recipient of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Local Pathways Fellowship, Cornell’s Robert James Eidlitz Fellowship, Harvard Library’s inaugural May Crane Fellowship, and Harvard GSD’s Penny White Prize. He has previously taught at Cornell University, the Boston Architectural College, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City), and the UNLV School of Architecture.
Alberto holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University and both a Master of Landscape Architecture and a Master of Design Studies in Urbanism, Landscape and Ecology from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.