Training Room
Education is a collaborative process designed not only to accumulate knowledge but to question, construct, and advance it. The friction produced in the process - resulting from exposure to (often contradicting) information, experiences and methods, coming from different times, geographies, and ideologies - is meant to trigger critical debate and harness both individual and collective curiosity.

A school is habitually the place where education takes place. It is the context that defines the formats through which content is produced or delivered, and, equally important but rarely mentioned, the force that triggers necessary changes in pedagogical approaches to address audiences that differ in scale and scope.

Training Room will be a talk both about an individual's journey through an institution and an institution's journey through an individual. It will be a talk about the opportunities that arise when personal and collective interests collide with ideas on education and a school. 

Mauricio Quirós Pacheco
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design

Mauricio Quirós Pacheco is a Costa Rican architect and Assistant Professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. He holds a Master of Architecture in Urban Design with distinction from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Universidad del Diseño (Best Thesis Award). He was Researcher for the Office of the Director at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) from 2010 until 2014 and has practiced architecture and Urban Design in America and Europe in offices including Stanley Saitowitz Office and the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. Quirós Pacheco has been guest critic and juror for various universities and institutions, including Architecture for Humanity’s Crossing Borders competition and the International Open Competition for FUNDECOR Headquarters. He curated and organized, with Hans Ibelings, the symposium Modern Architectures in Central America and is editing a book under the same title. Quirós Pacheco is part of StudentDwellTO’s core team, a research initiative awarded a grant by The Presidents of Toronto's Four Universities to investigate student housing. He is Advisory Editor for Manifest Magazine, A Journal of American Architecture and Urbanism, and his writings have been published in journals such as Domus, San Rocco, and the Architectural Observer.