Photo by Austin Sherman / Daniels

Daniels is pleased to announce the appointment of Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, Mauricio Quirós Pacheco to the role of program director, Master of Urban Design and post-professional programs in architecture and landscape architecture, effective July 1, 2026.

Quirós Pacheco succeeds Professor Mason White, who has served as both MUD and post-professional program director since 2023, and previously served as post-professional program director for five years. White is now dean of the faculty.

“It’s an honour to take on this new role at this moment as the faculty enters a new chapter with Mason stepping into the deanship, creating real momentum to advance new ideas and to continue building on the historic successes and strengths of our programs,” says Quirós Pacheco. “Equally exciting is the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues across architecture, landscape architecture, forestry and visual studies in a faculty that brings together such a breadth of disciplines.”

Quirós Pacheco is the founding partner of MIAU Studio, an architecture firm based in his native Costa Rica as well as Canada. At Daniels, he teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate architecture programs. He says the context in which Daniels is embedded, particularly its location in Toronto, is inseparable from what makes its programs exceptional.

“Our programs bring together an incredibly diverse body of local and international students — coming from distinct geographies, academic and cultural backgrounds, and professional expertise,” says Quirós Pacheco. “Toronto is the poster child of both the successes and the challenges cities face today: from exponential growth and building optimism to a housing crisis, from visionary environmentally resilient projects to excessive vulnerability to climate change, from extreme cultural richness and diversity to spatial and social inequality, from rotten politics to sophisticated modes of activism and citizen empowerment.”

“Here, urban design — urban thinking — are not abstract disciplines but much-needed voices that must exert their influence in real time.”

From 2010 to 2014, Quirós Pacheco worked at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) with then-director Mirko Zardini. He has practised architecture and urban design in the Americas and Europe with practices including Stanley Saitowitz Office and the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. He has served as a guest critic at various universities, including Yale University and the College of Architecture at Washington University's Sam Fox School and as a guest juror for international competitions such as Architecture for Humanity’s Crossing Borders competition and the International Open Competition for FUNDECOR Headquarters.

“The post-professional master’s program is an extraordinary opportunity for individuals holding a professional degree — and who already show promise for professional and academic leadership — to advance, extend, refine and deepen their prior education and sharpen their focus within the discipline,” he says.

Quirós Pacheco sits on the editorial board of Manifest: A Journal of American Architecture and Urbanism and his writing have appeared in publications such as Domus, San Rocco, and the Architectural Observer. In 2016, he co-curated the symposium Modern Architectures in Central America with Hans Ibelings, and in 2024, in collaboration with Andrés Fernández, they published Modern Architectures in Central America, an overview of 20th-century modern architecture in the region.

He holds a MArch in Urban Design, with distinction, from Harvard University and a BArch from Universidad del Diseño where he received the Best Thesis Award.

“Beyond supporting students, I want to help them develop their own strong, leading voice — not only through critical thinking and intellectual positioning, but through extraordinary design competence, ethics and sophistication. I want our graduates to carry real impact in the design community, both here in our home city and, given the diversity of our student body, globally,” he says.

He adds:

“Above all, it will be a privilege to help shape and imagine the future of these programs together with the incredibly diverse and talented cohorts that constitute our student body.”