I started doing architecture in 2002 and for health settings since 2007.
My early career task was to work with many hospitals in my home country Venezuela where patient and staff-centered designs are completely absent. Years later, I trained at the Berlin School of Public Health at Charité Medical University to learn scientific methods that could support building design processes targeting better health outcomes. Today I apply this knowledge in urban planning at the neighborhood level to accelerate the achievement of sustainable development goals.

At TU-Berlin, I have the opportunity of contributing to capacity-building in Urban Health at the Urban Management Program and the Department of Design and Building Sciences led by Prof. Jacob van Rijs. My activities also include being an editor to the Cities & Health Journal, which allows the production and dissemination of urban health knowledge.

As an independent researcher, I founded the Building Health Lab in 2018, a Think & do Tank with the mission of applying health strategies to reach sustainable urban developments. The Lab bridges academia with practice using a framework called UrbanCare, a pedestrian health approach with transdisciplinary problem-solving techniques.
Through the UrbanCare project, our team helps other researchers develop case studies across Europe to support urban ecosystem regeneration and human health at the neighborhood level. Globally, we also collaborate with climate and health advocacy groups such as the Global Health Hub.

Born in Venezuela, Alvaro spent most of his childhood in the U.S.A. to later return and achieve an architecture diploma in Caracas. In Spain, he completed construction management and then moved to Berlin, Germany. His vision to combine health and architecture got him accepted to study at the Charité Medical University of Berlin, the first architect to achieve a Public Health master at this institution.
 
In academia since 2011, Alvaro has been an Evidence-based Design Researcher at the Technische Universität Berlin, where he has conducted numerous pedestrian evaluation projects in various countries. At the TU-Berlin Urban Management Program, he teaches Urban Walkability, and at the Architecture faculty, he conducts research on healthcare delivery environments in collaboration with WHO Téchne.
 
In practice, Alvaro is the founder and manager of BHL Building Health Lab, a Think & Do Tank that creates health strategies to integrate sustainable development goals in urban planning and architectural design.
At BHL, he conceptualized and developed UrbanCare, a methodology to assist city planners in structuring cases for urban health in different climate zones such as the Oceanic in Gothenburg, Continental in Berlin, Intermediterranean in Florence, and the Mediterranean climate in Nicosia.

Alvaro also acts as commissioning editor for the Cities & Health Journal, collaborates with the German Architects Declare for Climate and Biodiversity, and is a member of the German Alliance for Global Health and the pedestrian advocacy group “Fuß e.V.” in Berlin.