Quirino de la Cuesta – Director/Producer is a first generation Filipino-American who is a graduate of Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) for Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1993. This is his first-time in creating a documentary film after practicing more than 25 years in the architectural field.

Born in Hollywood and lived his first 10 years at the Fairfax district in the Los Angeles basin before the family moved to Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley.

Mr. de la Cuesta spent his early childhood education at parochial school - St. Elisabeth and then attended Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, an all-boys school before turning coed. He discovered architecture from a friend who shown building plans one day and was hook in wanting to be an Architect. His first interest into Architecture was the works of Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry.

Before attending SCI-ARC, he took prerequisite classes at LA Valley College in order to attend SCI-ARC. Worked at the Greek Theatre in Hollywood in Griffith Park during the summer months for 3 years as an usher and the hill crew catching trespassers trying to sneak at the back of the theatre while listening to Neil Diamond, Frank Sinatra, King Sunny Adé, Yellowman, Run-DMC, the Beasties Boys, The Kinks, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Luther Vandross, Anita Baker, Weather Report, The Bangles, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jimmy Buffet, Oingo Boingo and Rodney Dangerfield. It influenced his love for variety of music and humor.

While attending SCI-ARC, the focus was not Architecture the first year but composition, art, photography, haiku poetry and woodworking. Dave Hickey, Betty Edwards (Drawing in the Right Side of the Brain), John Lautner (protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright) and Wolf Prix of Coop Himmelblau, an Austrian Architectural firm, were early influences in his education and end up as a summer intern for Coop Himmelblau.

The following years at SCI-ARC, Mr. de la Cuesta did find work at school working in the audio/visual department setting up lectures, recording them and renting out VHS tapes of lectures and movies like Battleship Potemkin, Battle of Algiers and City of God. The lectures that not only include architects but filmmakers like Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas; Wings of Desire), writer Greil Marcus of Rolling Stone , Jaron Lanier who coined the term Virtual Reality, urban theorist, artists and computer scientist.

His fourth year of SCI-ARC, he had the opportunity to take a semester in Europe at SCI-ARC’s European campus at Vico-Morcote, Switzerland. He was able to attend Venice Biennale of Architecture in Venice, Italy.

Arriving Europe for the first time, first destination was Paris, France which open his appreciation in city life and discovered certain nuances between Paris and Los Angeles in street design, architecture, urban planning and the quality of life. Started to think Los Angeles can approach this type of environment to the city dominated by sprawl and superhighways as part of the American landscape. The curriculum for the semester was to visit the works of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier by visiting his buildings at Geneva, Monaco, Paris and other parts in Europe. It also brings attention Le Corbusier work in urban planning in Radiant City. How both Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier both had visions of a Utopian City.

After the semester in Europe and returning to Los Angeles, he thrust himself into urban design by taking a studio class in re-imagining Crenshaw Blvd. in the Crenshaw District with writer Mike Davis who wrote “City of Quartz”. During that time, the Rodney King trial was going on where tensions were building up.

The day before the final presentations the verdict was read on the Rodney King Trial that found the four LAPD officers were innocent and it started the LA Riots. It changed his perspective on racism, identity and politics.

After graduation from SCI-ARC, his independent work focusses on design, art & multimedia. He took jobs in construction, theatrical design and learn computer aided drafting (CAD) to gain employment at small architectural firms working on single family residences in LA, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. He even worked for Peter Becker in Santa Barbara a brief period of time who wrote “City Observed Los Angeles” with scholar Charles Moore and Regula Campbell.

When he decided to move back to Los Angeles, there was an opportunity to work for the grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright, Eric Lloyd Wright. While working for Eric, he decided to make a Broad Minded City in 2010 and look into his grandfather's work, the American Architect who inspired the concept of organic architecture like masterpiece’s Fallingwater and Guggenheim Museum. What really gain his interest was the meaning of Broadacre City and how it came about. It started Mr. de la Cuesta journey in understanding Broadacre City and how it’s compared to today’s urban sprawl.