René Peralta studied architecture at the New School of Architecture in San Diego and the Architectural Association in London, England. He has been a professor at UCLA, University of Washington in St. Louis and, from 2012-2014, was Director of the Master of Science in Architecture with an emphasis in Landscape + Urbanism at Woodbury University in San Diego. Currently is the Herb Greene Fellow at the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture at The University of Oklahoma.
René’s work in recent years explores the contemporary and future forms of the urban border between the United States and Mexico, specifically between the cities of Tijuana and San Diego. René is a coauthor, with Fiamma Montezemolo and Heriberto Yépez, of the book Here is Tijuana, published in 2006 by Black Dog Publishing in London. In 2018, he co-edited, along with Tito Alegría and Roger Lewis, the commemorative edition of the book A Temporary Paradise: A look at the special landscape of the San Diego Region, originally prepared by Kevin Lynch and Donald Appleyard (COLEF 2018).
In 2015, his research on the Experimental Housing Project (PREVI) in Lima, Peru, was part of the exhibition “Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2017, he directed Hyperloop West, a group that went on to become a semi-finalist in the global challenge competition organized by Virgin Hyperloop One. In 2017, Rene curated the Tijuana-San Diego exhibit space at the 2017 Architecture and Urbanism Biennial in Seoul, Korea.
René is a member of the board of directors of Fundación Esperanza de México (FEM), a non-profit organization with more than 25 years of experience building communities and improving the quality of life of low-income residents of Tijuana through assisted self-built housing.
René is based in Tijuana and, in his spare time, is the conguero for the band “The Good Times” of Tijuana.