RODRIGO GUARDIA
Architect-UrbanistProfessor of Architecture, University of Panama (UP). URC-Associate Director of Urban Studies (A.H).
Rodrigo Guardia is a practicing architect, urban designer and Disaster Risk Management Consultant, based in Panama, where he obtained his Bachelors in Architecture (BArch) in the University of Panama in 1998.
BACKGROUND
Rodrigo Guardia is a practicing architect, urban designer and Disaster Risk Management Consultant, based in Panama, where he obtained his Bachelors in Architecture (BArch) in the University of Panama in 1998. He earned a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University in the City of New York in 2003. He has participated in the following special-oriented courses: Leaders in Urban Transport Planning, by the World Bank; Risk and Disasters, by the National University of Colombia in Manizales; and Public Space Design at the University of Panama.
He has worked as an architect in Guardia Arquitectura, and other firms in Panama and the USA. In recent years he has mostly been a consultant on Urban Planning and Disaster Risk Management for the World Bank and on the Road Nomenclature Project for Panama City with Steer Davies Gleave for the Municipal Government of Panama City. He is part of the consortia for the Urban Renewal of the Terraplén in Panama. He is currently working on local level Plans and Disaster Risk Reduction instruments in Panama and is part of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (PIMUS, as by its initials in Spanish) for the City of David
He has worked in the public sector as Technical Advisor, and later National Director of Planning Research at the Ministry of Housing and Planning, from 2010 to 2015 where he oversaw the development of the Planning for the influence area around Panama’s Subway Line 1, and a regulation on the requirements for sidewalks in new urban developments, both instruments were signed into effect in 2013.
He began his academic career in Konkuk University in Seoul in 2004 and has lectured at the University of Panama since 2006, where is a tenured Professor. He is a member of the Panamanian Society of Engineers and Architects and has been the coordinator of the Urbanism and Resilience commissions.
Rodrigo has published academic essays and research articles in specialized magazines such as Architectural Design, Domus (Central America and Caribbean edition), Canto Rodado, World Development Perspectives, AUC Journal of the Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil. He has coordinated Inter-institutional research projects such as the Probabilistic Earthquake Risk Modeling Studies for Panama City and David, under the Comprehensive Approach to Probabilistic Risk Assessment (CAPRA) with the support of the World Bank.
In 2013 he participated in the 1st Latin American Forum for Local Disaster Risk Management in Salinitas, El Salvador, and in the Creative Adjacencies Conference in Ghent, Belgium. Among other international academic and professional fora.
Professor Guardia has guided teams of students to contribute designs which obtained the host seed for Panama City for the 2022 XXIV Central America and Caribbean Games, and an honorable mention in the Bid Urban Lab competition in 2015. He participated with the first-place team Arte New York in the 2004 New Housing, New York Competition.
Since 2010, he runs the Colcha Urbana web-block.