Javier de Jesús Martínez

Associate Dean

Javier De Jesús Martinez is president and founding partner of Adaptable Paths, Inc.  He assists clients in the development of project strategies and their implementation.  As a result of his vast experience in the public sector he is able to work effectively with clients in need of building solid public private relationships.  He also taught at the School of Architecture of the University of Puerto Rico where he led the “IMDICE” studio workshop focused on researching real estate development issues such as density, public regulations and marketing.

Experience

Javier De Jesús has 14 years of experience in strategic planning and the integration of real estate development and infrastructure.  Most recently, he served as Advisor to the Governor of Puerto Rico on Urbanism, Infrastructure and the Environment.  During his tenure as Advisor, he led the conceptual development and strategic implementation of large-scale urban projects including, Ciudad Mayor, Mayagüez 2010, the Knowledge Corridor and RAMA (Red Ambiental Metropolitana).  In addition, he was responsible for the coordination of the executive branch’s infrastructure agencies, managing projects in the energy, water and transportation fields.  His creative urban outlook coupled with an ample understanding of government processes allowed him to lead and coordinate the investment of over $6 billion dollars in public and private projects.  He also led the first Urban Advisory Board to Governor of Puerto Rico, an interdisciplinary body created to formulate a mission and strategic action statement to lead urban development in Puerto Rico for the next 15 years.    Previously, De Jesús had worked as Director of Design and Construction for the University of Puerto Rico, where he was in charge of the implementation of University’s $300 million capital investment program.  As Director, he worked on more than 70 projects including the Molecular Sciences Building, the UPR – Rio Piedras Campus Theater, the new General Studies Building and the expansion of the Lázaro Library.

Education and Affiliations

De Jesús holds a professional architecture degree from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Sciences and Art.  He is the Associate Dean  at the School of Architecture of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico. From 1997-2009,  De Jesus taught numerous studios, lecture courses and occupied various administrative positions such as Assitant Dean and Undergraduate Program Coordinator. De Jesús is a member of the Colegio de Arquitectos of Puerto Rico.

Toward a Constructivist Studio Culture and Education: Values, Knowledge Fields, Capacities and Competences

In the academic realm, the curriculum and the programs are constantly studied and reviewed in search of building new educational models. Unfortunately, the majority of these studies end up being structural, quantitative and nomenclature recommendations. The review of credits, course names or simple changes on the course sequence, are light and cosmetic interventions that do not contribute to the improvement of education. This is not only insufficient, but that it distorts the social objectives of education.

To revolutionize the academia, requires transforming the Experience, The Pedagogical Experience where the student engages actively and dynamically on his intellectual, cultural, social and professional formation. To transform the Architectural Pedagogical Experience entails the search of knowledge, the development of capacities and competence necessary to develop in the contemporary professional and economic realm.

Historically, the schooling of Architecture has had inconsistencies, product of the bipolar relationship discipline/profession. This duality has derived unbalanced academic responses that privilege in occasions the dominion of practical correspondence to practical discipline. These correspondences have been historically altered depending on the economic and technological conditions.

Nonetheless, these correspondences are far from improving the didactic model, have distorted the educational purpose at the expense of production lines of professionals of academic searches disjointed with reality. Both distortions are pathological and restrictive for a healthy education, for a whole citizen.

To initiate a didactic transformation of architecture, there has to be an abandoning of those dualistic models between discipline-profesion/academic-profesional/built-nonbuilt/training-practitioner. No evolution of these dualities has yielded benefit to the quality of the contribution to our society and collective wellbeing.

It is imperative a new paradigm in order to substitute these dual constrains that limit our society from a total improvement on its individual and collective environment experience. Architectural education requires a new cognitive paradigm that breaks the passive model of conductive education of knowledge source and information receptor. Conscious and critical of this reality, the Catholic University School of Architecture establishes SEEDS, a new pedagogical paradigm.  SEEDS, the Spanish acronym for Experimental and Educational Sequence Disciplines and Solutions, are a new pedagogical technology that guides the operational, academic, research, cultural and social trends of the School of Architecture to promote multisectorial and transdisciplinar education.

A new education paradigm that breaks the traditional architecture education barriers should conceive education as a cooperation and exchange. For this the education system of our school has been conceived as a system opened to its university, social and professional surroundings.

Our institution offers an open education system centered on the experience of learning from all the players in the School’s environment. Knowledge not only occurs from the student-professor relationship rather that knowledge is multidimensional in which each member of our community is considered a source of knowledge, experiences, wisdom and innovation. It is multidimensional because it considers society and the city as laboratories, fields of action and destiny of our explorations and our new knowledge; multidimensional because it considers technology in a holistic understanding, learning it philosophically and technically to contribute imaginatively to our society.

The opening of our education system is guided by an ethic that leads constructively the relationships and links for a satisfactory interaction.

Respect – The highly valuation of biodiversity defined as territory and culture. Respect towards the Public (property and environment), Urban, Architectural and Landscape Patrimony. Each member of our community operates in respect towards the person, property and resources of our School and Environment.

Dignity towards Work – The high valuation of the person, the work and the professional, academic and research resources for the accumulation of knowledge to better the quality of our spaces and environments. Dignity towards the Work that all members of our community for the acquisition of personal discipline and collective execution of excellence in the formation of a body of new knowledge that contributes to our city and region as a healthy ecosystem for the human and citizen exchange engaged and responsible with Puerto Rico’s society.

Prudence – The highly valuation of a measured analysis of the actions, investments, interventions, time and resource management is essential in order for the energy invested by each member of our community to be of its most output. Guided by a vision of sustainability and responsible for the fair management of economic and physical resources, e ach member of our community is wise in their action s not limiting the capacities and responsibilities of other individuals, of the community and themselves.

Solidarity – The valuation and consideration of the needs and aspirations of each individual of our community to improve through education its quality of life. Solidarity that is materialized in new cooperative ways of teaching, learning, research and development of knowledge.

Leadership and Social Commitment – The highly valuation of Leadership and Social Commitment with the Cultural construction and contribution of Architecture, the strengthening of the spirit and the cultivation of imagination to promote innovation and luckily making feasible influencing our architectural and urban culture on a global level.

Equanimity – The highly valuation of equanimity in exercising critical judgment in the evaluation of the fellow’s performance to promote the paused and profound discussion of ideas in the search of new knowledge on urbanism, architecture and landscape architecture.

Tolerance towards Differences and Participatory Governing – The highly valuation and respect towards the fellow, culture and the exchange processes that enrich the social and intellectual capital of our community. The value towards locality should not be quarreled with the capacity of aperture and exchange of experiences, tendencies and efforts from other academias and professionals in Puerto Rico and the World. The highly valuation of the participation in the democratic exercise of growing a School through the strengthening of student leadership, faculty development and administrative capacitating.

Promotion and Dissemination – The highly valuation of disseminating, promoting and spreading the findings and research contributions of our School. From the individual work, the collective and multisectorial work through the traditional and non-traditional communication mediums to educate about the city and the social and cultural attributes of architecture and urbanism.

Stimulate the Creative Process and the Cultivation of Imagination – The highly valuation of the education and creative process as one open, interdisciplinary and multisectorial, respecting intellectual and creative property of fellows in the search of knowledge, the cultivation of imagination and the application of its ideas in benefit of the city.

Cooperation and Collaboration – The highly valuation of the disciplinary contribution as a social exercise of cooperation and collaboration in which the objectives are reached through the synchronizing of the strengths and improvement of the individual capacities in the execution of projects and Research.

A new leader, a new architect, a strategic architect has to emerge from an unrestricted knowledge environment. Our School promotes an educational environment in which the knowledge fields and the practical needs pragmatically converge in order to close the gap between concepts and solutions. Our School promotes an education environment in which human respect and ethical exchanges are the foundations of a trustful peer relation.  Our School promotes and educational environment in which the curriculum is a map that guides our academic community to the transdisciplinar exchange catalyzing cross-pollination and fertilizing innovation.