Conversations with Colleagues: Rodrigo Reyes

Q: What drew you to the design profession, and what is keeping you here?

A: I was born into a big, close-knit family in Managua, Nicaragua. Several of my family members are architects, interior designers, and artists.  My grandfather, Julio Cardenal Arguello or “Papino” as we used to call him, was the first native Nicaraguan to get a degree in Architecture and is remembered in Nicaragua as the architect that brought modernism to the country. My mom, an artist, ran her own art school for children where my cousins, friends, and I were free to express ourselves. One time, my mom left us for about one hour, and my older cousins decided to express themselves by using me as a canvas. They painted me head to toe. I was four years old and loved it!  Design and creative thinking, order and balance, color coordination, and awareness of space were part of my daily experiences from an early age.  When I was eight, I told my mom my dream was to become an architect.

I have been an immigrant since leaving my home country of Nicaragua when I was seven when my family left because of civil war and settled in Costa Rica.  At nineteen I immigrated again when following my dreams led me to the University of Miami (UM) in Florida, where my passion for design flourished.  Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, from the firm Duany-Plater-Zyberk (DPZ) known for their leadership in New Urbanism, was the UM’s School of Architecture Dean at the time. As such our training was in urban design and how each building contributes to the overall fabric of a town or city.  With the university, including then university professor Jose Gelabert-Navia (now managing principle of the Perkins&Will Miami Studio), I spent a semester in Rome, and was immersed  in history and culture, understanding of scale and proportion, and became enamored with the way architecture has shaped societies for centuries.

Q: Tell us about a time when you met someone who told you your project had somehow uplifted them, or improved their life—what did that person say, and how did it make you feel?

A: The best part of being an architect and seeing your ideas become tangible, inhabitable spaces is when, years after the building has been completed, someone comes to you and tells you how well the building or space is working for them. We design buildings, not to put our stamp on the world, but to create spaces where people feel comfortable, and find peace, joy, and inspiration in the daily use of spaces.

The design of hospitals and health care facilities is my passion. Creating healing spaces that provide natural light, views to nature, and a sense of harmony can go a long way in helping people cope and recuperate from their ailments.  In 2014, I designed the interior for a 75,000 square foot addition to Hospital Vivian Pellas in Nicaragua.  The addition included a children’s wing where the concept was the sea. We had a very limited budget (about 1/3 of the budget of a typical hospital in the US), but with gyp, paint, graphics, plastic laminate and intentionally situated windows,  we created simple themed spaces, shaping the nurse station as a boat centered in the unit for visual control; corridors ending on windows to the outside; and designing each patient room to look like a cabin in a cruise.  Every time I go back to visit the space, I get comments on how the children love it and have a chance to forget why they are there.  We approach each project with enthusiasm and do it with love.  It brings tears to my eyes to think that something I did and poured so much love into allows others to have positive, enriching experiences.

The love that we put into a project is embodied in the buildings we create and is given back to the people that use it.  To me, that is what architecture is all about!