DF_DC is an architectural practice established in Lugano and London in 2016, founded by Dario Franchini (CH) and Diego Calderon (MX), after having met at the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio (CH) in 2004. Our work involves the production of buildings, places and strategies for a range of sectors, pursuing an elemental space – an architectural language that is both legible and porous, interested in the relationship between structure and tangible finish. We work amidst engineers, geographers, developers, landscapers, and craftspeople; our buildings are large and small, mostly urban but sometimes in the mountains. We learn and exchange information from the different tectonic cultures we work or live in. We lead an undergraduate design studio at Kingston University since 2018 and have previously taught and lectured in the UK, Switzerland, Mexico and Argentina. Selected by Wallpaper* as one of 20 international practices to watch in 2020, as well as in New Architects 4, a “survey of the best emerging architects in the UK”. The practice was awarded an honourable mention at the Guadalajara Biennial 2019, the Best Architects ‘22 prize and had its first monograph published by Quart Verlag in 2021.