Daniel Florez studied architecture at the E.T.S.A.Madrid and E.P.F.L Lausanne. He graduated with the best distinction with a project that won several awards, including the X Biennial of Spanish Architecture award for the best Graduation Project of Spanish Architecture schools.
In 2006, while still a student, he moved to Paris to work at François Roche's architectural research office, where he had the opportunity to meet and collaborate on the design and assembly of art projects by two renowned contemporary artists, Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno.
In 2008 he started working at one of the most important offices in the world, Herzog & DeMeuron, getting involved in huge scale projects and working on colossal construction sites such as the BBVA Headquarters bank in Madrid,or the Hamburg Elb Philarmonie Opera, one of the most complex and challenging works built in the world in the last century.
At Herzog & DeMeuon's headquarters in Basel, he participates in competition winning projects such as the Gasklocka Apartment Tower in Stockholm, One Park Drive Tower in Woodwharf London and Brazilian projects such as the Lux Cultural Complex of São Paulo or the non-profit project, Arena do Morro, a gym on the outskirts of Natal, the northeast coast of Brazil.
www.herzogdemeuron.com/people/daniel-fernandez-florez/
In 2014 Daniel Florez settled in Tibau do Sul, a small village 60 km south of Natal (Brazil) and signed his first works as VILELA FLOREZ, with the architect Mariana Vilela.
In 2017, VILELA FLOREZ publishes their first important projects and receives critical success with many publications in architectural media such as: Wallpaper, Deezen, Designboom, Archdaily, Domus, Arquine, Architecture and construction, Design, Dwell, Princeton Architectural Press, Gestalten , Trendhunter....
In 2019, the design magazine WALLPAPER selects VILELA FLOREZ as one of the emerging architectural practices of the year with a special publication in the June issue, with a photo shoot at David Chipperfield's James Simon Gallery building in Berlin.
In 2020, Daniel Florez is invited to give lectures of his projects within the course on Contemporary Architecture in the Northeast of Brazil , organized by the Universities of Architecture of Alagoas and Ceará,in Brazil.
In 2021 Daniel Florez founds his Atelier Daniel Florez, designing and building his own projects with local workers such us the Folhas Sagradas Pavilion and the Gutter House, projects in which he creates innovative constructive solutions that
have been published in architectural specialized magazines like Arquitectura Viva, Summa, Trama, and many web platforms like Archdaily (Building of The Year) or Designboom.
Gutter House, in the northeast of Brazil has been recently nominated for the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, the most important architectural prize which select the best architecture done in the past two years in America.
The work of the Atelier tries to offer MORE with LESS. More comfort and more beauty with less energy, resources and gas emissions, looking for highly efficient solutions in very expensive and high maintenance technologies and designing with pragmatic intelligence to subscribe to the famous THINK GLOBAL,ACT LOCAL.