Santiago del Hierro
is an architect and researcher, currently pursuing his PhD on the expanded representation of Indigenous territory in the Northern Andean Amazon. Since 2008, his research has focused on development initiatives in the Andean Amazon, exploring how design can alternatively engage issues related to resource extraction, the expansion of agricultural frontiers, the encroachment of indigenous territories and contemporary narratives on what a post-development landscape could hopefully look like. Santiago holds a Master in Architecture from Yale University, where he attended as a Fulbright scholar, and between 2009 and 2010 was a resident researcher at the Design Department of the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. Until 2017 he taught at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, where he developed and coordinated the Urban Design Masters program. He has also been a guest professor at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Valencia, TU Delft, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.