About

Our name Alpaca Design Lab, or ADL, is a bit of a spoof. It stands for Applied Lessons in the Practice of Architecture, a nod to the failures and successes I've accumulated over the past couple of decades. The idea here is simple: I wanted to create a vehicle for sharing and hopefully learning from these experiences while creating new ones.

Today, we partner with architecture, construction, and product teams to build better tools, processes, and platforms for the built environment. Our work spans strategy and research, workflow design, data and analytics, AI and automation, and software development.

Federico Negro is an architect, designer and toolmaker, that lives between Brooklyn, NY and Manantiales, Uruguay. Having graduated with an MArch from Parsons School of Design in New York, he has spent the past two decades working at the intersection of architecture, technology, and business.

In 2008, Federico co-founded CASE, a design-innovation and technology consultancy that grew to more than 70 staff working for organizations like Disney, Apple and some of the world's most well known architects like Grimshaw, Snohetta, SOM, and many more. In 2015 CASE was acquired by WeWork, by then one of its largest clients.

As Global Head of Design at WeWork, he led the scaling of their design & construction group from a few dozen to more than 1,000-person architecture, design and engineering organization delivering work across 30+ countries, pioneering a data-driven approach to workplace design that reshaped conventional architecture practice. His work during this period was profiled in Architect Magazine.

Taking many lessons from WeWork's expansion, he went on to found Canoa, a software platform that tied the design and procurement processes together for the first time, a critical point of friction for many large owner operators. Canoa's work was featured in Metropolis, and Federico was named one of Business Insider's 15 People Shaping the Office.

Throughout his career, Federico has advocated for technology that enables rather than replaces human creativity — a perspective featured in Fast Company and explored in conversations on the Clever, SURROUND, and Architecture 5 10 20 podcasts. His thinking on architecture and the circular economy continues to inform ALPA's approach. Federico has also invested in AEC technology companies including Speckle, Monograph, and Naya.