Jorge Sotelo (30 years old), former student at MCH, is also a partner founder at Architects ÁlvarezSotelo. We interviewed him to get to know more about his professional career after finishing the MCH program 5 years ago (in 2011).
How is your professional career going right now?
I co-direct my own signature architecture and design firm in Madrid. We’re currently in year two of the firm and we are working on the internationalization of the company and a leap in the scale of our projects.
During the first year, we managed to successfully specialize in home renovation and design of interior spaces, allowing us to focus the process in two directions: small scale (restoration and design) and large scale (both public tenders and private sector) which alternated in collaboration with other professionals. There are four of us on the team.
What did you do after graduating from the MCH program?
Before graduating in September, 2011, I had the opportunity to work on projects with some of the professors at MCH. However, before doing anything, I began to collaborate with the firm b720 Architects in Madrid as well as on some specific projects for AH Associates.
Later that year, the firm Herzog & de Meuron offered me work in Basel (Switzerland), where I began in February, 2012. I developed projects in the Middle East, Asia, the USA and East Switzerland for 3 years.
After that, in January of 2015, I returned to Spain. That’s when I, along with a former classmate; Jorge Alvarez, founded AlvarezSotelo Architects.
How has MCH helped your professional career?
MCH helped improve my skills as an architect. It was a turning point in my career that allowed me to enter one of the most prestigious studios in the world, where I continued learning with scales and details from an international point of view.
All this together has helped me to develop my skills as an entrepreneur and to found my own firm, a dream I’ve had since I was a student. I can say that the masters literally opened the doors of the profession to a level that would have been virtually unattainable previously.
Do you do or have you done a project with other students or professors at MCH?
No, but I keep in touch with many of them and would love to be given the chance. However we have partnered with the Linazasoro & Sanchez firm for the development of international projects, having already completed one on urbanism in Germany and we are now immersed in a large-scale project in the cultural field in northern Europe.
Tell us more details about projects related to the masters field on which you're working right now.
We are currently working on small-scale projects, developing spatial transformations of private housing. The work is so far along that it has been published in the network and it has opened doors in other areas such as retail and larger scale projects on which we are currently working.
In addition, we have been contacted by interior design magazines to publish our work and they have invited us to participate in this year's event ‘DecorAcción’ in Madrid’s Barrio de las Letras.
In relation to architectural projects of a larger scale, we have participated in national and international competitions, where we have been awarded for the design of the Dearte-COAM Exhibition and we were finalists for the urban intervention in the city centre of Mostoles (Madrid).
Finally, I work as Official COAM Correspondent in Switzerland due to my experience in that country. For that reason, we are working on the development of a cultural project between the two countries. We’re hoping to see the light in the coming months.