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Rocío Calzado is a Spanish architect and political scientist based in Paris, currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. Her academic research focuses on maintenance practices in architecture and urbanism, particularly within the field of social housing. She studies the processes of demolition and transformation in housing estates across European cities, aiming to understand how maintenance can support sustainable and equitable urban futures.

Rocío is a co-founding partner of docar, a documentary film collective dedicated to narrating urban and architectural controversies. Her filmmaking practice centers on European social housing, demolition, maintenance, and housing rights. Her films have been presented at institutions such as the Venice Architecture Biennale, MAXXI Museum in Rome, and the Royal Academy of London.

Her professional work as an urbanist explores maintenance at both the building and urban scales. She collaborates with municipalities, social landlords, and urbanists to design architecture and urban maintenance protocols that can foster long-term sustainability and social innovation. Since 2023, she has been involved in a consultancy project with the Ville de Paris and Paris Habitat, developing new housing maintenance strategies for the city.

Rocío holds a Bachelor's and Master's in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, and a Master's in the Politics of Ecology from Sciences Po Paris. She has worked in international architecture offices such as MVRDV(Rotterdam), MQ Architecture (New York), Tsukamoto Lab (Tokyo), Ezquiaga Arquitectura (Madrid), and l’AUC (Paris).

Her academic work has been presented in forums such as Panel 21 at the United Nations’ World Urban Forum and published in journals including the European Journal of Spatial Development and the European Network for Housing Research. She is also a fellow of the Palladio Foundation and the LINA community, and a local collaborator of HouseEurope!




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Public presentations


2025 July. ENHR 2025. Beyond Social housing demolition? Maintenance and the Microelements of a Paradigm shift. 

2025 June. Making Things Last - Uni Maastrich, Organised by Jerome Denis, Lauren Wagner and Mark Young

2025 Ecole Speciale d'Architecture. Renovation vs Transformation of Social Housing.

2025 March LATTS - Seminaire PMMU. Architecture&STS Research Methods

2025 February Lifti - Filming social housing.

2025, January. House Europe launch event. Roundtable together with Lacaton Vassal, l’AUC and Paris Habitat.

2024, November. ENSA Saint Etienne. Crossroads 2024.

2024, October. Ensa Paris Est. Research Seminar. Title: Au-delà de la démolition. Invited by Eric Alonzo
2024, October. ENSA Paris Malaquais. Séminaire THP - "Le soin de l'architecture. Habitat social et crise climatique", With Fanny Lopez and Marie Artuphel.
2024, October. Image de Ville. Marseille. Chamber of architects. Round table: Architects and filmmakers, what type of alliances?

2024, October. Lina Annual Conference in Sarajevo. Theme: Transmitting the city and modern anomalies.

2024, July. AESOP Conference. Presentation of the research project ‘Reframing sustainable transformation of social housing Insights from France and Italy’, together with PhD. Federica Rotondo.

2024, July. Chair at the AESOP Conference held in Paris. Track 12. Futuring and planning.

2024, May. MUCEM Marseille. FOCUS. Presentation of film project in the documentary track.
2024, April. Lectures on Framing Renovation. Faculty of Architecture UL, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Organised by Lina Community and E Flux2023, December, Séminaire de recherche ENSAPLV  « Révéler des territoires - Exploration et production de savoirs ».  At the Villette School of Architecture with a response to the conference by Djamel Klouche.

2023, September. 6th Vienna International Summer School on New Social Housing. A Political Anatomy of Housing Estates. Organised by the research center of New Social Housing, coorganised with the TU WIEN, and the University of Applied Arts Vienna

2023, June. ARQ Guadalajara. Gobernando la utopía en las afueras de Roma. Imparte: Mtra. Rocío Calzado
video

2023, March. Roma Tre. Dialoghi sull'abitare a cura di Milena Farina si svolgerà la conferenza di Rocio Calzado Lopez
Conference

2023, March. Intituto Svizzero di Roma. Architecture, Politics, and the Case of Corviale. Together with Professor Marco Cremaschi.  Organised by Roma Calling fellow Giorgio Azzariti
2023, March. Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning in Rome. Recycling Utopia. The Role of Housing Estates in Europe’s Ecological Transition. Course by Viviana Andriola and Serena Muccitelli

2022, September. European Housing Research Network. ENHR Barcelona 2022. Corviale according to its own logics. Invited by Zaida Muxi and Josep María Montaner

2022, June. UN-Habitat. 11th session of the World Urban Forum. Katowice.  Panel with members of the UN (Katja Schäfer) France Urbaine (Delphine BOURDIN ), Mannheim city hall (Peter Kurtz) Magdalena Piorun, and the EU commission (Thomas de Béthune). Comparative Analysis on Urban Agendas.
Organised by the FNAU and Sciences Po Paris.

2022, June. Architecture and Landscape. BAP! Biennale of Versailles 2022. Terroir vs Territory. Round table with Niklas Fanelsa, Louise Morin, Emeric Lambert and Simon Teyssou. Moderated by Rocio Calzado. Auditorium de la Forge ENSA Versailles
More info

2021 Camacol Colombia. Pannel shared with the former minister of environment and housing of Colombia, Juan Lozano and the Vice President of Bancolombia, Luis Ignacio Gómez Moncada.

European Network of Housing Research,  World Urban Forum