WHAT INSPIRES OUR APPROACH
A single migration from Africa populated the world, sixty thousand years ago according to genetic evidence, giving birth to the Global Nomad—the central character in the ongoing tale of human migration and development known as the Journey of Mankind. For millennia, this instinct to explore and settle—seeking safety, sustenance, power, and comfort—has shaped our planet into the interconnected world we know today.
Urbanization is its most recent chapter. Today, nearly four billion people inhabit urban areas—over half the world’s population, and expanding. By 2030, as Sarah Williams Goldhagen notes in Welcome to Your World, nearly half the buildings Americans occupy will have been built after 2006. —an accelerated global growth that is requiring massive new construction in cities and the areas immediately surrounding them of buildings, landscapes, infrastructure, and urban areas that will profoundly shape our feelings, memories, and well-being.
This relentless expansion that began with a few driven nomadic humans seeking the next frontier together —possibly paced by climate changes according to research—is the foundation of our integrated design practice:
We believe in the power of collaboration and thoughtful design to create sustainable, thriving communities that honor our shared past and build a better future.
Cristián founded Global·Nomad in 2010 as an integrated design delivery platform to accelerate sustainable land planning, low environmental-impact development and building design, and resilient communities. He leads Global·Nomad by building custom collaborative and dynamic teams for each project, to tackle wicked problems* and design challenges in novel ways.
Trained as an architect and urban designer at the University of Chile, with postgraduate studies on design leadership and management, at the University of Washington, and a background in behavioral design, Cristián has worked on design and development challenges in in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. He has worked in Paris with Renzo Piano —Pritzker Prize laureate and sustainable design pioneer— and was an Associate Partner with ZGF Architects in Washington, USA —currently number-one US-based sustainable design firm, according to Architect 50, the journal of the American Institute of Architects’ ranking.
Cristián focuses on creating and mixing tools to empower collaboration and co-creation, using entrepreneurship and behavioral design as strategies for incentive-driven human development, both in urban and high environmental value regions of the Americas. He is a member of The Explorers Club since 2009 —and is currently Chair of its Latin America Chapter— as well as an advisory board member and mentor for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology‘s Coastal Solutions Fellows Program. Cristián was featured in Archdaily’s “Conversaciones FAU”, that recognizes 10 influential University of Chile alumni that are pushing the envelope of the design profession.
*a term introduced in planning theory by Horst W. Rittel and Malvin A. Webber (1973) to describe problems that are difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize.
