Cristina Parreño Alonso is the principal architect of the eponymous firm. Parreño is a licensed architect in Spain and UK, with ten years of professional experience working in Madrid and London. She holds a Masters and Bachelor degree in Architecture and Civil Engineering from the University of Madrid, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura (ETSAM) where she graduated with honors.She started her professional career in Madrid, and in January 2005 she moved to London and joined Foreign Office Architects (FOA) where as project director she was responsible for a number of projects in Spain and UK. In February 2008 she moved to Madrid to open FOA Madrid and continued her role as Project Director for the new building of the Forensic Institute on site.Since 2009, she has been working on her own practice and teaching at various architecture universities. She has taught design studio at the University of Western Australia, at the State University of New York at Buffalo and she currently teaches graduate and undergraduate design studios at MIT School of Architecture and Planning.She has won several architectural competitions, among others, the 1st prize for the Urban Rehabilitation of the Business complex AZCA in Madrid and a 3rd prize for the Housing Competition for Young Architects J5 in Andalusia. Her work has been published in newspapers like El País and El Mundo and in several architectural magazines like Quaderns, Via Arquitectura and Arquitectura COAM.