How We Choose to Live | Emiliano López Matas
How We Choose to Live
We are a small Barcelona-based practice founded in 2001, intentionally structured to remain closely engaged with all stages of design and construction. Our work spans multiple scales, with a strong focus on housing, climate, and the relationship between how
we build and how we live. We approach architecture as a strategic, integrative process rather than a formal pursuit, prioritizing low-carbon materials, passive climate strategies, durability, and social interaction. We embrace complexity and contradictions,
understanding buildings as living systems whose expression emerges through environmental, cultural, and collective values.
About Emiliano López Matas
Emiliano López Matas is co-founder and co-director of Emiliano Lopez Monica Rivera Arquitectos. He holds a Ph.D. in Architecture from the Universitat Polite cnica de Catalunya, with a dissertation titled 6107 MSD. Peabody Terrace: Keys of a Design Process Led by Josep Lluís Sert. He earned a Master of Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (Real Colegio Complutense de Madrid Scholarship), a Master of History with a focus on Art, City, and Architecture from UPC, ETSA Barcelona, and a degree in Architecture from the Universitat Polite cnica de Catalunya, Valles. He has taught at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili School of Architecture; at ESARQ, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya; as adjunct professor and co-director of the University of Calgary’s Barcelona Architecture Program; and as adjunct and associate professor at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Valles. At Washington University in St. Louis, he served as visiting professor and later senior lecturer of architecture, teaching the graduate Core Housing Studio for a decade and coordinating the course for seven years.
