Cecilia Fagel
SVA MFA Design Criticism (2013)
Cecilia Fagel has an undergraduate degree in architecture and business degree in design management, and her professional experiences spans a number of fields. Prior to becoming a student, Cecilia worked
in a furniture design company in Cebu, Philippines, and also as a media marketing analyst for a New York-based advisor to Dentsu Japan. While a student, she also completed large a design research project for a university consortium in Asia. Cecilia considers design criticism as a method for conceptualizing, researching and solving problems. Besides her backgrounds in design, architecture and business, she also brings to D-crit ideas from literary fiction (Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is one of her favorite literary tools.) How to make the invisible layers of cities around the world visible and open for discussion and debates? Cecilia currently investigates this in her position as managing editor of Urban Research (UR), a book series soon to be available in the Fall of 2014. UR is an imprint of Terreform, a nonprofit led by architecture critic and activist, Michael Sorkin (her invited speaker in the 2013 D-Crit “counter/point” conference). In addition to managing UR, Cecilia consults in in design and real-estate development projects in the Philippines. And recently she also worked as a architecture researcher for a film shown in Japan Pavilion at 2014 Venice Biennale. Her writings has been published in Architect’s Newspaper, form, and by the Cooper-Hewitt’s DesignFile.