ArchDaily Creators Basulto and Assael Present Lecture on April 9

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David Assael, left, and David Basulto co-founded Plataforma Networks and later launched the architecture website ArchDaily.

David Basulto and David Assael will present a lecture titled “Opportunities for Architects” at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 9, in Hembree Auditorium in the Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences Building (Room 107E), on the University of Arkansas campus.

Basulto and Assael co-founded Plataforma Networks, under the mission to improve the quality of life of the next 3 billion people that will move into cities in the next 40 years, by providing knowledge, inspiration and tools for architects.

The project started in 2006 with Plataforma Arquitectura, the most visited Spanish-language architecture website. In 2008, they decided to take this network to a broader audience, launching ArchDaily, which later became the most visited architecture website in the world.

In December 2011, they launched ArchDaily Brasil, continuing with the mission to spread architectural knowledge. This project has taken them around the world, attending conferences and biennales, and interviewing practitioners at some of the most renowned firms, including Eric Owen Moss, Richard Meier, Kengo Kuma, Renzo Piano, Steven Holl, Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Joshua Prince Ramus, OMA, Office dA, SOM, Peter Bohlin and Carmé Pinos.

Basulto was invited to be part of the jury for the XVII Chile Biennale and coordinator for the Chilean exhibit at the XVII Ecuador Pan-American Biennale. He was also a guest critic at the 44th Architecture Salon in Croatia and served on the jury of the 2010 Young Architects Award by the Young Architects Association of Catalunya, Spain, as well as juries for the XVII Chile Biennale and the Chilean Selection for the VII Iberoamerican Biennale. He was coordinator of the Chilean Selection for the XVII and XVII Panamerican Quito Biennale and has been on the juries for several civic and educational projects in Chile.

Basulto and Assael have also been included as part of the 100 Young Leaders in 2009 by El Mercurio (Chile’s most influential newspaper), and have been chosen as Endeavor Entrepreneurs by the Endeavor Foundation, based in New York.