Angela Pons Architect & Strategic Designer
Angela Pons
My Story
I believe that my background as an architect and service designer (also photographer and storyteller from time to time) has provided me with an appropriate combination of skills to deal with the design and improvement of digital products, physical spaces (understanding how the user interacts with the built environment, creating outside-the-box experiences) and cities, which I see as fascinating urban laboratories. During my architecture studies, I collaborated with the German firm Raumlabor (Berlin) in a project whose goal was the development of urban cooperation strategies, and also with several offices in Madrid. After that, I worked as an architect (mainly in the retail field) in Madrid, the Netherlands and NYC. My interest in sustainable cities design and management led to a research collaboration fellowship with UNESCO at the Eindhoven University of Technology, culminating in a published paper about Sustainable Built Environment in the English journal “Facilities”. In 2016, while living in NYC (where I spent 5 years), after having worked on a workplace transformation design project (Novus), I started a career shift towards Service Design, volunteering for a social innovation project at Architecture for Humanity, and obtaining Design Thinking training at The Design Gym. Back to Madrid, I completed the Interaction Design program at La Nave Nodriza and the H2I Master in Innovation. I also attended a Cities Service Design workshop at CIID (Copenhagen). Afterwards, I volunteered for a social innovation project in Nepal, focused on the education field. I have worked as a Strategic Designer in the insurance field (Verti) for the Customer Experience Department and as an Innovation Strategy Consultant (Opinno), where I mainly engaged in retail, mobility and banking projects. I have been part of the Innovation and Technology for Development Centre "Cities Community", aimed at design and implementation of actions for urban transformation towards sustainability. More recently, I have collaborated with 3G Smart Group in innovative workplace strategy and design. Currently, I work for Materia Prima as a design researcher and service designer, and I also coordinate the master's degree in Strategic Design at La Nave Nodriza. Besides, I freelance for specific projects and continue to enrich my background with training. My passion for photography complements my work. I studied at the ICP and worked in NYC as a freelance photographer. I have been doing so since then (National Geographic, Off-Broadway, Make Music NY…). I have also been part of group exhibitions in NYC (Photoville, Foley Gallery), Berlin (BBA Circle Gallery), Melbourne (Laurent Gallery) or Madrid (Photoespaña).
To be continued...
Architect & Strategic Designer
Resume 1/2
Where: SPAIN NETHERLANDS GERMANY DENMARK ENGLAND USA NEPAL
Amsterdam Architecture MIR Architecten Architect. Schematic Design & Design development
Madrid & Spain
Professional Experience Academic Experience
Changu Narayan
Selected experience & background. More information on My LinkedIn Strategic Design & UX AIPC Pandora Strategies aimed to develop the cognitive, academic, emotional and social skills of children by assisting local educators with their day-to-day activities/ Strategies aimed to establish recycling habits in the community
Photography ND Awards Photo series awarded with Honorable Mention in the category Children Portrait
Education AIPC Pandora Educational program for the Changu Narayan Public School: Planning of educational strategies for children from 2 to 12 years old/ Teaching different subjects/ Facilitation of communication workshops with the youngest kids (2 to 5 years old)
Materia Prima Senior Design Researcher & Service Designer La Nave Nodriza User Experience Design Program Co-Coordinator & Professor Instituto de las Mujeres Training in Service Design: entrepreneurship program for women EU Program Erasmus + Strategic Design & Business development for students from different European countries, focused on rural entrepreneurship 3G Smart Group Strategic Designer & Architect. Workplace Innovation & Change Management Innovation and Technology for Development Centre - itdUPM Cities Community Member & Communication liaison Opinno // Innovation Strategy Consultant Verti // Service Designer Ladies that UX // Guest Speaker H2I Institute Master in Innovation La Nave Nodriza User Experience, Interaction & Visual Design/ Social Innovation/ Designing & Facilitating learning spaces (Kaospilot)
Architecture G+J // Architect. Retail projects (Prada, Inditex, etc) Mostaza Design Architect. Retail projects (Fund Grube, Vodafone, etc) ETSAM Master of Architecture (M.Arch.). Master's Thesis: Awarded Honorable Mention (COAM. Madrid League of Architects)
Rotterdam Photography MVRDV MVRDV Monograph "Buildings". Photo included
Photography National Geographic // Photos for travel article Photoespaña // Photo Group Exhibition Comunidad de Madrid // Collaborating photographer COAM // Group Exhibition: Architects’ Fine Art White Night Festival Group Exhibition & Curation. La Casa Encendida
Eindhoven Architecture Eindhoven University of Technology Advanced Architectural Structures
Research & Writing
Research & Writing
Escuela de Escritores Short Story included in the 2020 anthology publication Achtung Magazine "Postcards from NY". Articles & related photo series Escuela de Escritores // Creative Writing
Eindhoven University of Technology Guest Researcher in studies related to sustainable architectural interventions and built heritage lifespan
Melbourne
Education
Education
Photography
Eindhoven University of Technology Supervising Master Students Training
La Nave Nodriza Students Mentor & Workshop Facilitator Storytelling & Public Speaking Club Coordinator Red Cross // Children Tutor & Youth Recreational Activities
Laurent Gallery Photo Group Exhibition
Visual Design
What I do: Strategic Design & UX
Strategic Design & UX
Architecture
Photography
Research & Writing
Education
Visual Design
Espíritu 23 // Illustration Group Exhibition La Cuarta Pared // Set design & concept development
Architect & Strategic Designer New York
Resume 2/2
Languages
Strategic Design & UX The Design Gym Design Thinking Bootcamp
Architecture
English
Perkins Eastman Architectural Designer. RFP, Schematic Design, Design Development & Construction documents for several retail, office & housing projects Leeser Architecture Architectural Designer. Competitions, Schematic Design, Design Development & Construction documents for several retail, cultural & housing projects Architecture for the Humanity Architectural Designer. Volunteer.
Full professional proficiency
Spanish Native
French
Bingley
Limited working proficiency
German
Limited working proficiency
Dutch
Elementary proficiency
Research & Writing Emerald Publishing Published paper as first author: The sustainability of management practices in the Old City of Salamanca. Facilities Journal.
Photography Photoville Festival Photo Group Exhibition Foley Gallery Photo Group Exhibition Muse Photography Awards Gold Winner Open House NYC Focus on Architecture Competition. Honorable Mention Make Music NYC Freelance photographer The Morpholio Project Eye Time Photo Competition. Emerging Talent Jury Honor Award & Double Honorable Mention ND Density Awards Honorable Mention in multiple categories International Center of Photography Architectural Photography/ Strategies for Visual Storytelling/ Studio Lighting/ Documentary Photography/ Large Format/ Film Photography/ Digital Workflow/ Street Photography
Skills Interpersonal
Respectful / Empathetic / Good Communicator / Active Listener / Tolerant / Responsible / Dependable
Design, Methodologies & Tools
Facilitation / Etnographic Research Methods / Systems Thinking / Agile (Scrum, etc.) / Future Scenarios Forecasting / User Journey / Blueprint / Product & Service Conceptualization / Prototyping / Visual Thinking / Storytelling
Software
Education
Adobe (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom, Acrobat) / CAD / 3D Max / Rhinoceros / Revit / SketchUp / Sketch / InVision/ Figma/ Miro & Ability to learn new Digital Design Software
Pratt Institute School of Architecture Guest Architectural Design Critic
Visual Design
Strategic Design & UX Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design Designing at City Scale
Raumlabor Collaboration in the project Hotel Neustadt: development of urban cooperation strategies
Photography BBA Gallery Photo Group Exhibition
What I do: Strategic Design & UX
Architecture
Photography
Research & Writing
Berlin
Copenhagen
Architecture
Education
The Bailsmen LP & CD design for NYC jazz band The sketchbook Project Art sketchbook included in the 2016 Sketchbook Project Collection School of Visual Arts Creating & Illustrating Children’s books Pi Art Center Creative Drawing
Visual Design
Strategic Design
Strategic Design
Workplace Culture Transformation 3g Smart Group
CONTEXT At the Madrid headquarters of a multinational corporation with three lines of business (medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods) a transition towards a new work culture and its corresponding new offices had begun. Each of the areas worked as an independent company. With this project it was intended to achieve greater integration, partly facilitated by the location of the three areas in a single building. CHALLENGE How could we accompany employees in the transition to a new way of working in order to create a successful employee experience in a new office space? PROCESS During the research phase, a series of activities were carried out, both to detect fears & expectations and to define opportunities for this change. As a result of these opportunities, a set of goals was set and the necessary challenges of the change management timeline were defined in order to achieve them.
Strategic Design
Workplace Culture Transformation
Strategic Design
Workplace Culture Transformation
Strategic Design
New Social Spaces at Work 3g Smart Group
CONTEXT An international supermarket chain needed an expansion project at its headquarters in Barcelona, including spaces for social use for its employees that responded to design criteria of quality, sustainability and well-being CHALLENGE How could a new physical space for interaction between employees enhance their well-being at work and mitigate the pains of their current work experience? PROCESS Strategic interviews with the business units were conducted so as to identify determining factors of the context and needs of the organization in terms of production and well-being. We lead workshops to generate alignment around the objectives, scope and indicators of success. We defined the archetypes of users and the journey of each one of them to understand their needs and expectations. Following the pains and gains of each journey, we integrated the main needs in diagrammatic layouts of the space.
Strategic Design
New Social Spaces at Work
Strategic Design
New Social Spaces at Work
Strategic Design
Retail User Experience Opinno
CONTEXT A shopping center in the North of Spain intends to take actions to attract new customers and keep existing ones CHALLENGE How can the shopping center be a reference complex, both for current and new customers current as for new? PROCESS The project consisted of three phases: UNDERSTAND: Obtain a clear understanding of the context and the stakeholders’ goals. OBSERVE: Conduct an in-depth analysis to identify the archetypes among clients and potential clients. Map the experience of the prioritized archetypes (60-70% of customers) DEFINE: Identify top pains and opportunities, acquiring a higher understanding of the customer experience so as to facilitate next steps
Strategic Design
Retail User Experience
Strategic Design
Retail User Experience
Strategic Design
Commuter User Experience Opinno
CONTEXT A transport management company intends to take action to improve the experience of the commuters CHALLENGE How can public transport users perceive their journey as satisfactory? PROCESS The project consisted of three phases: UNDERSTAND: Obtain a clear understanding of the context and the stakeholders’ goals. OBSERVE: Conduct an in-depth analysis to identify the archetypes among clients and potential clients. Map the experience of the prioritized archetypes (60-70% of customers) DEFINE: Identify top pains and opportunities, acquiring a higher understanding of the customer experience so as to facilitate next steps
Strategic Design
Commuter User Experience
Strategic Design
The Mutant Factory H2i Institute + Designit
CONTEXT As a team, we were presented with a challenge chosen by Designit, with this company acting as our problem-owner throughout the whole process (research, ideation, prototyping and implementation): CHALLENGE How can human beings remain relevant in a fully robotic industry? SOLUTION A service that connects companies in the industrial sector, using the talent of professionals to create a perfect match and developing alliances that allow innovative production initiatives to be carried out. For this purpose, spaces, materials, residual machinery and renewable energies will be reused, and new digital manufacturing technologies will be incorporated within the framework of a circular economy.
Strategic Design
The Mutant Factory
Strategic Design
The Mutant Factory
Strategic Design
The Mutant Factory
Strategic Design
Pop Up Business La Nave Nodriza
CONTEXT Two current problems with no apparent connection: forgotten artisan workers and gentrification CHALLENGE How can we encourage both temporary urban use and artisanal entrepreneurship? SOLUTION Scholarship application program abroad for new entrepreneurs, focused on the artisan sector, re-using public space while also encouraging local diversity and integration.
Strategic Design
Pop Up Business
Architecture
Architecture
Moscow Science Museum and Educational Center Leeser Architecture.NYC
The Moscow Polytechnic Museum and Education Center includes two auditoriums, a full lecture theater, two lecture halls, research centers, labs, a new library, permanent and temporary exhibition spaces, offices, and a public terrace for additional event space. The design inspired by a separate circulation path organized like a double helix to ensure two primary groups (Users and Visitors) communicate and interplay with each other to foster an intense proximity in certain areas while also having their own function areas. The buildings interior orientation is achieved through augmented reality technology pointing the way to the Visitors or Users desired destination. The design focus on sustainability through the use of sun exposure, winds, as well as high efficient artificial lighting.
Architecture
Moscow Science Museum and Educational Center
Architecture
Moscow Science Museum and Educational Center
Architecture
DUMBO Mixed-Use Building Leeser Architecture.NYC
The program is comprised of a three-level underground public parking garage; 10,000 square feet of ground floor retail space along Water Street; a full-floor, 45,000-square-foot public middle school to serve 300 students; and 220,000 square feet of rental apartments, 20% of which are designated for affordable housing. LEESER’s design uses pattern at two scales to enliven the surface of the residential tower project. At the large scale, a branching two story line cuts an iconic void pattern into the field of glass fins that wrap the building. At the small scale, a pattern of opposing triangles on each fin creates the illusion that the façade is undulating. The combination of the two gives a sense of depth and movement to the simple taught glass form.
Architecture
DUMBO Mixed-Use Building
Architecture
DUMBO Mixed-Use Building
Architecture
Workplace: Novus
Leeser Architecture.NYC Working with Novus to accurately respond to their specific requirements, Leeser Architecture designed a series of creative options that so as to support Novus’ need for flexible work space clusters catering for their expansion of over 200 new staff in their Manhattan offices. These solutions include meeting spaces which double as sculptural elements, creative labs which encourage collaboration between groups and isolation bubbles for private work spaces.
Architecture
Workplace: Novus
Architecture
Workplace: Novus
Architecture
Sustainable Floating House MIR Architecten. Amsterdam
The x-floater (awarded first prize at the Mobile Floating Architecture competition of the IBA in Brandenburg) is a fully self-sufficient, floating home. The project combines materials and technology in the field of energy generation and water filtering into an innovative solution for living and floating on water, CO2-free and with a minimal ecological footprint. External wall construction and energy generation are integrated. The walls and the roof produce energy. Electricity is generated by solar cells integrated in the roof. All elements are made from the same thermoplastic base material, polyethylene. The different layers are produced separately, and fused together in a production process under low pressure and elevated temperature to form a sandwich panel of the desired shape and size.
Architecture
Sustainable Floating House
Architecture
Sustainable Floating House
Architecture
Mixed-use office Building. Dock 72. Brooklyn Perkins Eastman. NYC
Dock 72 is a 16-story, 675,000 sf mixed-use office building designed in response to the way people work today, and sited in the heart of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a former shipyard and industrial park, reimagined as an anchor of Brooklyn’s Tech Triangle. Dock 72 is a modern office building that venerates the legacy of labor forged at Brooklyn’s historic Navy Yard, while looking ahead to foster the tech, manufacturing, and creative sectors that have rebirthed 21st century industry in Brooklyn. Dock 72 is designed to harness the power of these forces by organically facilitating cross-pollination, networking, and idea sharing through serendipitous encounters between the diverse community of startups, creative, and small businesses who share workspace there.
Architecture
Mixed-use office Building. Dock 72. Brooklyn
Architecture
Mixed-use office Building. Dock 72. Brooklyn
Architecture
Midway. St. Paul, Minnesota Perkins Eastman. NYC
Mixed-use development of the nearly 25 acres surrounding Minnesota United’s new soccer stadium in St. Paul. Historically this site and ones like it nearby had escaped the attention of developers. Nonetheless the asset of the Midway site is that it is highly accessible via the highway, light rail and on foot.
This master planning was envisioned as a new commercial and entertainment district that would be anchored by the stadium. This major redevelopment includes high-rise office buildings, hotels and residential complexes as well as a possible movie theater, fitness club, shops and parks.
Architecture
Midway. St. Paul, Minnesota
Architecture
Midway. St. Paul, Minnesota
Architecture
Filming Studio and Audiovisual Production Complex Final Master’s Thesis. Tutor: Federico Soriano This complex was designed according to the chronological succession of activities that make up the creation of a film, from the beginning (executive directors meeting) to the end (premiere screening), through casting, filming and post-production. The building itself becomes tangible storytelling, housing all the necessary spaces for the journey of cinematographic creation, always taking into account the required parameters (facilities, orientation, area ...) for each of these actions. AWARD: Awarded Honorable Mention by the Madrid League of Architects (COAM)
Architecture
Filming Studio and Audiovisual Production Complex
Architecture
Filming Studio and Audiovisual Production Complex
Photography
Photography
The Concrete Bird
TWA Flight Center. JFK Airport. NYC The TWA Flight Center, designed by Eero Saarinen for Trans World Airlines, opened in 1962 at NYC’s JFK International Airport, ushering a new era of jet air travel with its futuristic design. Following TWA's continued financial deterioration during the 1990s, the terminal ended operations in October 2001. The Port Authority converted the original head house into a hotel, finished in 2018. This series of photos was taken one of the last and few days that the former cathedral of aviation was open to the public, after almost 15 years of complete abandonment. PUBLICATION: Postcards from New York: TWA Flight Center. Article & photo series (Achtung Magazine. Spain) AWARD: Focus on Architecture Photography Competition. Honorable Mention (Open House New York. NYC, USA)
Photography
The Concrete Bird
Photography
Distorted Scenarios Collage Series
Through conditioned perception of space, we generate our internal collages, which do not just depend on our own spatial capabilities but also on innumerable parameters and conditions, such as light sources, mood, isolation, objects or concentration. The assessment of reality is, in a way, a playful experience, with abounding combinations and permutations. Lots of layers of visual communication result in one intellectualized image. With this series, I intend to show the subjectiveness of our visual perception of the existing physical scene. A particular combination of details which create a different whole scenario, depending on the way they are assembled. One variation in one factor could alter the entire perception. AWARD: ND Awards. Fine Art. Honorable Mention
Photography
Distorted Scenarios
Photography
Raul’s Barbershop NYC
In a time of Barbershop Renaissance, Raul’s barbershop has been running for more than 40 years in the East Village. Raul came from Puerto Rico. His family owns 4 barbershops back in San Juan. It’s in his blood. Six days a week, Raul, his son and several family members provide service to his loyal local clients. They talk about politics or personal issues while the radio plays joyful music. PUBLICATION: Postcards from New York: Life at the Barbershop. Article & photo series (Achtung Magazine. Spain)
Photography
Raul’s Barbershop
Thank you! angelaponsm@gmail.com +34 626 88 80 95