Meet our Members: Hildemar Cruz

Meet our Members 

an informal series of questions 

Name: Hildemar Cruz

Education Background: I graduated from Florida International University with two Bachelor’s degrees; Philosophy and Women’s Studies.  I was eager to express the nature of my reality through an aesthetic medium so I went back to school to study video production.  Four years of working in television was enough to send me across the country to the desert to shed some scales. I was determined to work in a field that genuinely serves the community in a positive way. While serving a year through AmeriCorps at Habitat for Humanity, I discovered my love of structures and building.  Next thing I know I’m registered for architecture classes…

 Your Favorite Architect or Designer and why? The Venus Project

For the time being, my favorite Architect/Designer is not a single person but an organization; The Venus Project.  The Venus Project was created in 1975 by self-educated structural engineer, industrial designer, and futurist Jacque Fresco and technical/architectural illustrator and model-maker Roxanne Meadows. Driven by the aim to restructure society through the implications of theoretical design the project aims to bring awareness of the current outdated and ill structured economic model. The projects aims to reform our anomalous economy into a resource based economy. “This economy promises an abundance of all resources necessary to human survival and the progressive replacement of human labor with automated technology. This would change the environmental conditions that are responsible for spawning aberrant human behavior such as violence, corruption, greed and exploitation.”

Meet our Members: Ian Salamanca

Meet our Members

an informal  series of questions 

Name: Ian Glenn Salamanca

Education Background: I initially started my education in writing (journalism/ literature), at the end of High School I moved my focus to screenwriting, editing, and film production. Frustration with the film industry led me to Business and Hospitality Management-which better suited my personality. It wasn't until an overcrowded semester that left me classless lead me to discovered Architecture.  The more I learned about it, the more I realized that Architecture was the culmination of the trades and traits I have already studied and possessed   Of each of the professions I experienced, creation was the motivating factor of my interest.  I may not have known it, but I have always been a designer.

Your Favorite Architect or Designer and why?

Jeanne Gang of Chicago.
 Her truly unique designs are awe-inspiring; often times requiring more than a double-take.  Her firm's  methods of construction are also masterfully orchestrated, the construction projects usually yield more recycled materials than waste.  Her programs are so intelligent they practically become one with nature; one in particular featured a screen designed in such a way to drastically reduce the number of endangered bird deaths, caused by flying into glass.  The sheer amount of information she and her design firm collect for their projects is impressive. That previously mentioned project also was built in a specific physical location that intentionally DIDN'T disrupt the mating habits of said local fauna. It was that attention to her surroundings that sets her design apart. It's that love and respect for our natural world that makes her an inspiration to me as a future Architect.