The College of Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, welcomes Nicolás Valencia as Visiting Lecturer in Architecture for the 2025–2026 academic year.

Valencia is an architect, writer, and former ArchDaily editor-at-large from Chile whose work explores contemporary architecture and urban dynamics in Latin America through critical writing, editorial projects, and public engagement. In 2022, he was awarded the Young Architect Prize by the Chilean Association of Architects in recognition of his contributions to architectural culture.

From 2019 to 2023, Valencia served as Head of Editorial at ArchDaily, the world’s most-visited architecture platform, where he also directed the global competition New Practices, dedicated to recognizing emerging architecture offices worldwide.His editorial leadership culminated in the publication of The ArchDaily Guide to Good Architecture (gestalten, 2023), the platform’s first book. He is also the co-author of #XFORMAS (2022), a collaborative project highlighting alternative modes of practicing architecture, and author of Enjundia (2023), a collection of essays on architecture, food, and culture in Chile and Latin America.

In addition to his editorial practice, Valencia has been deeply involved in academic and cultural initiatives. He co-founded Redes IAAC, a Latin American platform for critical discussion of the built environment at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), where he continues to teach in the online master’s program Cities: The Next Urbanism. He has also taught and lectured at institutions across Latin America and Europe, including the University of Talca in Chile, Escola da Cidade in São Paulo, and the Radical School in Mexico City. In 2023, he was invited as a Guest Scholar by LA ESCUELA, an international project supported by Siemens Stiftung.

Valencia’s work has been presented at the II Tbilisi Architecture Biennial and the XX Chilean Architecture Biennial, among others. He has served as juror for several competitions, including ArchDaily’s New Practices, the National Graduation Project Competition in Chile, and the Bienal de Arquitectura de Lima. Since 2024, he has acted as Ambassador for the Ammodo Architecture Award in the Netherlands.

“Architecture is not only about buildings but also about the ways in which societies imagine themselves,” Valencia said. “I see architecture as a form of cultural production that connects disciplines, communities, and ways of living.”

Valencia will teach undergraduate design studios and seminars that link design practice with critical perspectives on the built environment. “Latin America has been a testing ground for experimental practices that rethink the role of architecture in society,” he noted. “I look forward to bringing those conversations into dialogue with students and colleagues in Knoxville.”