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Saturday, 9 February 2008 | Levent OZLER
Leo A Daly Miami Welcomes Ricardo Fernandez as VP and Director of Design
 The Miami office of international architecture, planning, engineering, interior design and program management firm LEO A DALY announced the appointment of Ricardo J. Fernandez, as vice president and director of design. In this capacity, he will spearhead the design efforts for various projects, including those in the civic, commercial, transportation, hospitality, education and healthcare sectors.
Fernandez has more than 25 years of leadership experience as studio head and design principal with major international design firms, where he has led the planning and design of a wide range of building types. Notable among these built and proposed projects are the various transportation components of the Miami Intermodal Center (under construction); the Florida International University School of Life Sciences and Public Health in Miami; the mixed-use Rockwell Center and Kilometer 17 in Manila and Mexico City respectively; a planned 74,000-seat, tension-cable roofed stadium in Chicago; and the renovation and expansion of landmarks such as the Civic Opera House of Chicago and the Detroit Athletic Club.
"I am looking forward to working with our talented studio of designers and sharing my experience with very diverse programs; I have been fortunate to be involved over the years with significant projects that make a positive impact at the scale of the city," says Fernandez.
Schooled in the principles of an architecture that arises from the integration of program with context, and structure with form, Fernandez notes that the challenge for the practice of architecture in a young and fast-growing city like Miami is to take from the best that has been done before, both locally and elsewhere, while "avoiding facile shape-making, and evolving a distinctive type of expression rooted in our climate, our light, our abundant subtropical landscape, exploring and blurring the boundaries between indoor and outdoor, enclosed and open, natural and man-made."
Fernandez's distinguished academic background includes a Master of Architecture from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University. He has maintained an involvement with education as a guest critic and adjunct professor of graduate and undergraduate design studios, including appointments at the Illinois Institute of Technology and Florida International University.
Prior to joining LEO A DALY, Fernandez was the lead designer of the consultant group working for the Florida Department of Transportation on the various projects comprising the multi-phase, 50-acre, $1 billion Miami Intermodal Center, including a new Central Station for rail and surface transport to be built starting in 2010. Fernandez started his career in the office of Murphy/Jahn, working on the United Airlines Terminal at O'Hare International Airport, and subsequently spent 14 years with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP, where he became an associate partner and studio head.
Over the course of the past ten years, Fernandez's projects have received professional and critical recognition, having been exhibited or presented at forums such as the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Miami Chapter gallery, the Bienal Miami, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Chicago Architecture Club. A number of these projects have received both local chapter and national AIA design awards for built and unbuilt work, including a Distinguished Building Honor Award for the Chagall Mosaic Structure in Chicago, and unbuilt design awards for the Miami Intermodal Center.
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