Danilo Guzman

I am a Chilean architect and what I love most about architecture is its fusion of an urban core with philanthropic possibilities. While pursuing my Urban Planning Master degree at Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, I understood how a clear communication between urban planners and communities can bring about effective and beneficial results. After completing my master’s degree, I worked for five years in municipalities as a project manager where I applied this concept. Throughout my positions, I was able to empathize with people and to speak with urban planners, further developing an appreciation of the importance of holistic communication that a multidisciplinary team provides.
With this experience, I then started my first company Virtualizar to create mobile applications of augmented reality, virtual reality and 360-degree tours. These past few years, my professional experience at Virtualizar as a cofounder in Chile has been one of the most interesting yet challenging experiences of my life and, although it was both emotionally and physically demanding, it instilled in me the desire to enter into a doctoral program in urban planning.
I was especially inspired by the people-centric philosophy of urban planner Jan Gehl, who focused on improving the quality of urban life. This led me to focus on capturing people’s feedback in public spaces and to analyze which area of their surroundings caught their attention the most. Additionally, Virtualizar highlighted how eye-tracking analytics in virtual reality applications can underpin evidence-based feedback from people; for this reason, in my spare time, I undertook to study virtual reality filmmaking with the purpose of implementing these analyzes in 360-degree videos as well.
I lived in Paris for two years, traveling around Europe, filming public spaces in 360 degrees. Although engaging with advertisement-filled public spaces and advertisement-covered heritage facades has shown me the reality of urban planning regulations, I believe that urban planners hold a great privilege and responsibility in mitigating the impact of advertisements while enhancing the integrity of the architecture, a difficult situation, attempting to balance local regulations between politicians and brands that want to attract customers.
In 2018 I returned to Universidad Politecnica de Madrid in Spain where professors like Jose Fariña Tojo (thesis Calculation of the entropy produced in various areas of Madrid), inspired me to write an essay on the subject that allowed me to enter the doctorate program. Where I am currently a PhD candidate in the Urban Planning program. Together with PhD Javier Ruiz Sanchez, I co-authored the article Analyzing attention to ads in public spaces using virtual reality (VR), eye- tracking and 360 videos.
I am now living in New York working hard in this new company, Eye Tracking City and my future plan is to expand new branchs in Europe and Sudamerica, dedicated to offering cutting-edge tools to urban planners around the world. Outside of my academic life, I enjoy painting, acting and filmmaking. Through my work experience I have realized that urban planning can be challenging and demanding sacrifices.