About
Manolo Castaneda
Residential Designer
Manolo Castaneda is a residential designer with more than 10 years of experience in multifamily and retail projects. He trained in architecture in Brazil and the United States, with degrees from the Catholic University of Brasilia and NJIT. He is bilingual in English and Brazilian Portuguese and is based in Orlando, Florida.
He designs from the site and from how people live in a building: space, light, circulation, and how a room is used. A design is not finished until it can be permitted and built, so local code and jurisdiction rules are part of the process from the first sketch. Code literacy is what lets a design get built. It is part of the work, not a separate service.
What I value
What I value in a project.
- Start with the site. The lot and the way the owners live decide more than the style does.
- Test the idea against how the room is used. If it looks good and works badly, I drop it.
- Say why. Every decision has a reason I can explain to the owner and to the builder.
Start with a conversation.
Tell us about the project and we will tell you plainly if it is a fit.