For years I have argued that the most common problem in architecture is not one of execution but of diagnosis: projects fail because the problem was wrongly framed from the start. What the studio does, in every project, is step back to the moment when the problem can still be reformulated. Look before proposing.

When I won the competitive selection for Full Professor at UBA’s CBC and started designing Cátedra Najmias, I discovered that this same principle was exactly what Argentine design education rarely teaches. Most design courses start with the proposal, the form, the solution. What’s rarely taught, and what’s most needed, is the moment before that: learning to see what’s happening before deciding what to do about it. Students arriving at the CBC in their first university semester haven’t yet locked in the wrong sequence: propose before you look. That window doesn’t last long.

The three exercises the book documents make the method visible: students build a representation of their own identity before learning any technique, manipulate paper to understand scale and structure, and intervene in Buenos Aires public space under the condition that defines the entire (Inter)Actions Urban program: the project is not complete until real effects on the community can be observed. That condition is exactly what the studio applies in every project, regardless of scale or program.