UDESIGN: Loud 2025 Breaks the Silence with Creativity and Purpose

• Under the theme Loud, UDESIGN 2025 invited students and professionals to raise their voices through art, architecture, and design. The event brought together students, faculty, and international experts in a gathering that celebrated creativity as a tool for transformation.

The Universidad de Monterrey inaugurated a new edition of UDESIGN: Loud 2025, an international meeting focused on inspiring, learning, and reflecting on the transformative power of creativity across the fields of art, architecture, and design.

Held on September 24 at the UDEM Theater and organized by the Centro Roberto Garza Sada for Art, Architecture and Design,the event convened students, faculty, and specialists for dialogue centered on this year’s theme: Loud, a concept that highlights ideas that resonate powerfully within society.

“These are the ideas that break silence, unsettle with purpose, and bring visibility to what once remained hidden”, was emphasized during the opening remarks.

This year’s program featured a wide array of lectures and workshops led by international experts, including members of UDEM’s Global Community Professor program, offering attendees diverse perspectives on creativity and design.

Among those in attendance were Carlos Basurto Meza, UDEM’s Academic Vice-Rector, along with directors of the University’s Schools and Colleges, as well as students and faculty across different programs.

In his welcome message, Basurto underscored that UDESIGN has evolved beyond a traditional conference format becoming a true meeting point for creative exchange.

“This space has become a celebration of creative thinking, honest expression, and interdisciplinary dialogue”, he stated.

Referring to this year’s theme, Loud, he emphasized its call to use creativity as a purposeful instrument for expression.

“This year invites us to raise our voices through art, architecture, and design—to not remain silent when something must be seen. Loud is an invitation to unsettle with purpose, to create with awareness, to imagine with courage, and to think of others”, he said.

POETRY AND HUMANISM IN ARCHITECTURE

During his participation in UDESIGN, Juan Trías de Bes, a Spanish architect with more than three decades of experience and a Global Community Professor at UDEM, shared his perspective on the relationship between technique, poetry, and humanistic awareness in architecture, presenting projects developed throughout his career.

Recognized for works such as the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Barcelona and the restoration of Casa Burés, Trías de Bes aimed to open an interdisciplinary dialogue among students of architecture, art, and design.

“I didn’t want this to be useful only for architecture students, but also for those coming from other disciplines, like design and art, so they could also learn or share something from what we teach,” he explained.

Reflecting on the role of young architects, he stressed the importance of cultivating a personal vision with purpose.

“We live in a society that still needs to value humanism, individual will, and aspirations. That is what we really need to work on. I always tell my students that the most important thing is to be clear about what they want to do, and that is perhaps the most difficult task: discovering, in the face of each challenge, what we truly must do," he emphasized.

Trías de Bes also explored the relationship between architecture and everyday life, highlighting poetics as a tool to reinterpret the ordinary.

“Poetics speaks of everyday things, but expressed in a way that makes others realize they had never heard them described like that before, even though they always sensed it. It is, in other words, about speaking everyday—of the magnificence of the everyday”, he noted.

To illustrate this idea, he shared an anecdote related to the bell, a simple yet symbolic object: “The poetics of space is something extraordinary because we are surrounded by elements that inspire us. In one of the theses, the bell appeared, and when I arrived here, I was told that at UDEM they ring it during graduation. Pablo Neruda had one in his home as a symbol of celebration. When I visited that place, the bell changed my perception of architecture and, in fact, of the world.”

He concluded by emphasizing the value of collective work over the individualistic approaches traditionally associated with the discipline.

I don’t believe in inspiration descending from the heavens. I believe in rolling up your sleeves, sitting down with your peers, and working. I believe less and less in individual work and more in collective intelligence. Creativity, increasingly, is embodied in community, and that carries tremendous humanistic value,” he said.

INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABILITY

One of the main highlights of UDESIGN: Loud 2025 was the lecture by Robert Grimm, a German architect and Delivery Director at BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), who also participates as a Global Community Professor. BIG is headquartered in Copenhagen and has offices in eight cities worldwide.

With extensive experience in urban, cultural, and infrastructure projects, Grim explained how the firm combines innovation, sustainability, and global vision.

“At BIG, we don’t design based on intuition or whim; each project responds to the client’s needs, sustainability goals, and site conditions”, he explained.

BIG operates as a global network with more than 750 employees of 30 nationalities, working in offices in Copenhagen, New York, London, Barcelona, Shanghai, Zurich, Oslo, and Los Angeles.

During his talk, Grim underscored the importance of cultural diversity: “Our approach is to place people from the countries where we operate onto their projects. This way, they bring their cultural perspective and share knowledge about their neighborhood, their culture, and all the nuances that enrich design. Let’s say that citizenship can bring value to projects”.

Presenting some of their work, Grim spoke about the Sorbonne University Innovation Center in Paris, developed in a heritage-rich area in the city center under specific restrictions.

“We created hundreds of case studies to determine the best way to construct the building while complying with site restrictions, program requirements, and client expectations. Only when all these conditions align can we say the concept is complete”, he noted.

UDESIGN also featured speakers such as Claudina Flores, Mexican designer and architect; Carlos Martínez, graphic artist and visual communicator trained in Mexico, Spain, England, and Italy; Tim Stock, professor at Parsons School of Design and member of the Global Community Professor program; and Sol Kellan, costume designer and performance artist, also part of the Global Community Professor program.

The 2025 edition of UDESIGN offered practical workshops and portfolio review sessions, giving students the opportunity to receive direct feedback from experts and to experiment with creative processes applied to real-world projects.