Monica Rivera: Domestic Thresholds

Mónica Rivera was born in Puerto Rico in 1972. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1993 and a Bachelor of Architecture in 1994 from the Rhode Island School of Design, as well as a Master of Architecture with distinction from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in 1999. From 1994-1997, she worked at the Architecture Research Office in New York and in Barcelona, where she has lived since 1999. She worked for the Editorial Gustavo Gili before founding, together with partner Emiliano López, López Rivera Arquitectos. She has served as a visiting professor of architecture at Washington University in St. Louis (2015-2016), at Elisava School of Design and Engineering in Barcelona (2001-2008), and at the ESARQ Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (1999-2002). She participates frequently as a guest critic at different schools and on several awards juries, such as the XI Architecture Biennial of Architecture of Puerto Rico (2009) and the FAD Awards in Barcelona (2015).

The work of López Rivera Arquitectos has received several architecture awards, including the Young Architecture Award of the 10th Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism, first place in the 7th Iberian-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism, first prize in the AR Emerging Architecture Awards (UK), design distinction from IDMagazine Annual Design Review, the FAD Architecture Award for Iberian Architecture, and a nomination in 2009 for the Mies Van der Rohe European Prize. The firm's projects have been published in national and international publications such as El Croquis, A+U Japan, Domus, I.D. Magazine, Interior Design (NY), and The Architectural Review (London), among others, and have been exhibited in venues such as the Cité de l'Architecture & duPatrimoine in Paris (2009) and the Venice Architecture Biennale (2012). A book on their work titled Domestic Thresholds was published by Quart Verlag Luzern this year.