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Bay Area architect and educator Sandra I. Vivanco passes away

May 7, 2020

On March 31, Bay Area architect and educator Sandra I. Vivanco passed away in her home after a year-long battle with cancer, surrounded by her family. Originally from Lima, Peru, Vivanco came to the Bay Area in the early 1980s and was the principal and founding member of A+D, Architecture + Design, responsible for several buildings in San Francisco’s Mission district, and one of the consulting firms on the new Mexican Museum near Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Based on the premise that inclusiveness and excellence in design can and should coexist, the work of A+D has been recognized globally.

Vivanco was an alum of CED’s architecture program, earning her BA in 1985, and later her master’s degree from Columbia University’s GSAPP. Vivanco practiced architecture in Japan, Portugal, Italy and Brazil and taught at Barnard and Columbia in New York, at UC Berkeley and CCA in California (1994–2020), where she was associate professor of architecture and diversity studies, and at Escola da Cidade in São Paulo and Universidad Ricardo Palma in Lima. 

While at CED, Vivanco was an active member of CASA, the Chicano Architecture Students Association. She authored several articles on Latin American 20th century architecture — specifically the post war condition in Brazil — including chapters in Transculturation, Cities, Spaces and Architectures in Latin America and Baroque New Worlds. Several of her residential projects were featured in two books: San Francisco Modern Homes and Casas en la Ciudad, Architectural Houses. Vivanco was selected as one of 10 Architects to Watch featured in California Home & Design magazine in 2010.

Her exhibition on iconic works of Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi in the mid-90s was the first in the U.S. Always ahead of the curve, her commitment to make architecture for those communities under distress from inequalities and threats of displacement—whether in the SF’s Mission or Rio’s Rocinha favela—was central to her pedagogy and foundational to her design practice A+D.

“Anyone who has spent time and/or traveled with Sandra knew that she could pack 48 hours into 24 without missing a samba step. Our lives were all made better for having her with us. We’ll keep her effervescent spirit close to our hearts,” wrote her friend and fellow architect Mabel O. Wilson, Spring 2018 Howard A. Friedman Visiting Professor of Practice at Berkeley and the Nancy and George Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and Professor in African American and African Diasporic Studies, and the Associate Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS) at Columbia University.

Dr. Robert Gonzalez (PhD Architecture 2002) and professor and director of the Texas Tech University at El Paso Program in Architecture writes, “Sandra would have laughed out loud if she knew she passed away on the 25th anniversary of Selena’s death [and Cesar Chavez’ birthday], because another passion she had, and that we shared, was elevating women of color in our schools and profession. . . Sandra will forever be in our hearts, and she’ll always represent the strongest of passions some naturally develop to courageously and vigorously scale the mountains they choose to climb.”

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