Santiago del Hierro is an architect and researcher based in Quito, Ecuador.
He holds a Master in Architecture from Yale University, where he attended as a Fulbright scholar. As a researcher at the Design Department of the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht during 2010, he focused on development initiatives in the Ecuadorian Amazon in order to produce alternative visions on how architecture and urban design could potentially engageissues like deforestation and shifting economies in the region. Together with L A Arquitectos and Estudio A0, his firm designed Ikiam University’s Campus in Tena. Recently, he edited Plan ZIMM-S, a planning proposal for the zone of influence of a new transfer port on the Napo River for which he collaborated with CityLAB, a research institute based at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
As an academic, del Hierro teaches at the School of Architecture, Design and Arts of Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, where he developed the Urban and Territorial Design Masters program. He has also been a guest critic at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam and at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Aquitectura de Valencia.
