JOSEMARÍA DE CHURTICHAGA is Frank Gehry Chair at the University of Toronto, Associate Dean IE School of Architecture, IE University, Madrid, and Director for the Design Thinking Launch Program at IMBA Master at IE Business School. In 1995, he founded Churtichaga+Quadra-Salcedo Architects, an international practice obtained mainly through competitions. The firm’s business card reads: we make possible your special spatial empathic human happy disruptive thoughtful impossible exciting thrilling dreaming emotional deep light airy experiential atmospheres….we are an attitude! CH+QS is a small office. They want to remain small. They deliberately reject specialization, since they believe in ‘transfusions’ between all the creative problems, independently of its nature and climbs. CH+QS defends architecture as a sensorial and an experiential interface.

Churtichaga has lectured and taught at several institutions in the US, UK, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, India, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Argentina, Mexico, and Cuba. He loves typography, sailing and above all, oysters.