Emiliano López and Mónica Rivera

The Department of Architecture welcomes Emiliano López and Mónica Rivera for their lecture, "Climate, Use, Construction." This lecture presents a series of projects through the lens of climate, use, and construction.

Mónica Rivera and Emiliano López are principals and co-founders of Emiliano López Mónica Rivera Arquitectos, based in Barcelona, Spain. Their practice is grounded in carefully crafted work that understands architecture as a cultural endeavor deeply engaged with its environment. Approaching circumstances and contingencies as positive values, they develop tectonic and conceptual responses specific to each project and site, with particular attention to social interaction, integration within context, and experimentation in construction.

Rivera and López’s work encompasses multiple scales, has received numerous international awards, and has been widely published. A monograph featuring housing projects and essays, Domestic Thresholds, was published by Quart Verlag. 

Both partners have combined practice and teaching since 2000 and hold an M.Arch from Harvard University. López holds a PhD from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona and, in Spring 2026, held the Eugene McDermott Centennial Visiting Professorship at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Architecture. Rivera is the Harry K. & Albert K. Smith Professor at the Rice University School of Architecture, where she also serves as director of graduate studies.

If you require any accessibility accommodation, such as live captioning, audio description, or a sign language interpreter, please email news@design.upenn.edu. Please note, we require at least five (5) business days’ notice.