consultancies
capacity building
knowledge transfer
private-public partnerships
credit-making innovations
IN GLOBAL INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
LAB
Social Design, Systems & Territory Strategy
The engine for macro-scale, interdisciplinary orchestration. We aim to "desubjectify" traditional design boundaries to operate at the intersection of environmental approaches, mixed-methods sociology, social design, and territory strategy. We act as the vital interlocutor between disciplines collapsing the lines between artists, engineers, policymakers, and citizens. We turn impact evaluations into innovations.
Services: Consultancies, instruction design, training, strategy business development, positioning, knowledge management, impact evaluations for development projects, environmental & social safeguards, environmental and social framework evaluations, finance bonds and guarantee negotiations, biodiversity financing, strategic link to architecture, design and visualizations, pedagogy design, project management in engineering, life cycle analyses, social design, talent development and team development, placemaking, Gehl-like methodologies, and storytelling/writing.
We lean on the private sector to democratize our ideas, on citizens to bridge top-down technical analyses with inclusive every-day placemaking community practices. The lab experiments with academic actors to legitimize and decentralize our proposals, often merging with local governments. We shape the intelligent, equitable systems that cross-disciplinary designers inhabit with outside their lines, driven by the foundational 2020-2021 pedagogy and our current active partnership.
Heavy influence on the London School of Economics' Geography and Environment (LSE), France's la Sorbonne's social science philosophy, Zofnass' sustainable infrastructure, from Harvard Graduate School of Design's landscape approach united with sociology based analyses.
LAB Members: Maria Beatriz Garcia Rincon, Professor at Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) in Urban Studies and Executive Director of DisLocal LAB with 2021-2022 DisLocal Alumni, the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello (Academia de Moda, multimedia lab) and GRIP (Holberg Award Winner, Bjorn Bertelsen) at University of Bergen.
As of July 2026, Mabe Garcia is working on an independent portfolio with only private sector and civil-society partnerships. Previous partnerships and projects are available in the credits on the bottom margin of the website pages and represent the team's work between 2020-2026. Focus on M& E Evaluations, GIS Spatial Analyses, Finance in Sustainable Bonds and traditional Bonds with institutional investors and diaspora led financing, Gender in Informal Settlements ents and her award winning EspacioMujer [She-Space, fintech on incremental housing-SME pioneering credit system], and stakeholder multiple engagement and agenda consolidation for policy toolkit implementation.
Current Ongoing Projects: 1- Dignity Third Spaces: a prototype during the Venezuelan post earthquake crisis to bridge social design and bonds beyond temporary housing structures in post natural disaster scenarios, 2- Diploma Cultural Design, 3- El Guaire River: the Nature-Based Costs, 4- Gender Assessment Frameworks: Informal Settlements, 5- El Calvario Settlement, 6- Radical Pedagogy.
Active Invited Participation from DisLocal Lab in Dislocal Studio Projects: 7- Rio Turbio, 8- Acrobacia and Cauce (Everyone's House in La Palomera).
Note: Mabe's current role as UCV Urban Studies professor is separate from this Lab.
STUDIO
Architecture & Design Technical Execution
The engine for technical project delivery, material precision, and formal spatial engineering. Focused on the rigorous structural cycles required to anchor high-level policy concepts into permanent physical reality, we master the technical specifications and construction methodologies that define contemporary build-tanks.
Services: Capacity building with communities, landscape approach design, architecture design, housing, public spaces from an architectural positioning.
Driven by the foundational 2020-2021 execution principles and a legacy of collective projects, we synthesize physical terrain data and structural design into complex built environments. We draw the permanent, high-precision lines that manifest systemic territorial strategy into physical space and urban assets (buildings, plazas, public space, the architectural object).
Heavy influence on Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) Architecture Faculty (FAU) pedagogy and French ENSA architecture circuit, Belgium-based landscape curriculum, and architecture at its purist form. Both Studio and Lab are under partnerships under GRIP, University of Bergen and in collaboration with the LAB's structural frameworks as precursor to architectural byproducts.
STUDIO Members and architecture collective: Marcos Coronel Bravo, Khristian Ceballos, Alessandro Famiglietti, Daniel Otero, Ricardo Sanz, Rodrigo Marin, Rafael Machado, Luciano Landaeta, Barbara de Sousa. Previous Partnerships: UCV Partnerships for River Caribe and River Turbio Projects were heavily influenced through UDE UCV (satellite UCV university of Architecture in Barquisimeto, Lara) under Dean Caricatto who recently and sadly passed away, and current EARCV Director Marcos Coronel; Collective assistance: Khristian Ceballo, UCV Unidad 9 and Taller X. Yet the landscape approaches and thematic vision is a collaborative feature of those pilot projects with the LAB.
Current Ongoing Projects: 1- Pedagogy Approach Experimentation for In-Situ Community Knowledge Transfer, 2- El Calvario Settlement, 3- Cabudare Capacity Building Lara Project, 4- Rio Turbio, 5- Casa Mara Research, 6- Rio Caribe Project, 7- Acrobacia y Cauce [Acrobats and River Movements].
Active Invited Participation in DisLocal Lab Project: 8- Diploma Cultural Design.
Note: Marcos role as UCV Director and professor is outside of the constraints of this Studio, as well as all collective members individual firms' work.