COLORES, Latinos in Architecture’s sixth annual celebration of Latino culture, will take place October 1-3, 2025 at Architecture Center Houston and Kirksey Architecture, with conversations and presentations by Jesús Edmundo Robles, Jr., Assoc. AIA and Cade Manning Hayes, AIA, of DUST, AZ; Nadia Palacios Lauterbach, AIA, of Nadia Palacios architecture + interiors + landscape; Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, Director of Nuestra Palabra: Latinos Having Their Say; Chef Emmanuel Chavez of TATEMÓ; a conversation and tour of the future home of the Houston Hispanic Research Center with the City of Houston, the Houston Public Library, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, and Brave/; Light bites by Avila Experiences; curated dinner by Chef Emmanuel Chavez of TATEMÓ Thursday evening ; performances by Danmar Academy of Performing Arts and a Mariachi quartet lead by Julian Corona-Medina.
Please consider becoming a sponsor of COLORES. A portion of the proceeds from this event will be donated to Architecture Center Houston’s Latinos in Architecture scholarship program, established by the AIA Houston Latinos in Architecture Committee in 2019. More information about the scholarship program may be found here.
Wednesday, October 1, 6pm
On Wednesday, October 1 we are thrilled to welcome Nadia Palacios Lauterbach, AIA of Nadia Palacios architecture + interiors + landscape and Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, Director of Nuestra Palabra: Latinos Having Their Say.
Nadia Palacios grew up in Nicaragua surrounded by books. Her parents were retired teachers and owned a bookstore. At night her father, a history professor, would share his favorite stories, Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, Alexander the Great conquests, the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Traveling the world, through stories created a lasting impression associating those places and the unique architecture.
Nadia will share her personal journey into becoming an architect and how her family, culture and travels have shaped her. Despite leaving Nicaragua in her teens, her Latinidad never left her and has become an integral part of my identity as a person and as a professional.
I form part of the generation that grew up translating English from the outside world into Spanish for our household. Today, we are the generation that translates our community to the rest of the world through common structures and tools that form reality.
Tony Diaz
Tony Diaz is the founder and director of Nuestra Palabra, which a community-driven platform dedicated to amplifying the voice of Latino authors and visual artists within the community. He became the first Chicano to earn a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Houston. Diaz recently published The Tip of The Pyramid: Cultivating Community Cultural Capital (2022), which explores the power of cultural and community capital. Diaz is also one of the nation’s leading forces in fighting book bans and cultural censorship. He was dubbed El Librotraficante, or book trafficker, a decade ago after leading a grassroots campaign transporting thousands of banned books to Arizona, which had removed Mexican-American studies classes from public-school curriculum.
Tony will share his story, the Nuestra Palabra movement and why it’s important to celebrate the rich diversity of Latino literature and visual art, offering narratives that resonate with the experiences and perspectives of the community.
Lite bites provided by Avila Experiences.
Architecture Center Houston
902 Commerce St
Houston, TX 77002
About Nadia Palacios Lauterbach, AIA
Nadia Palacios Lauterbach is a registered Architect in the state of Texas and the state of Colorado. She credits her passion for design and architecture to her upbringing in the colonial cities of Nicaragua. She attended the prestigious School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, where she received a bachelor’s degree in architecture in 2003. Nadia In 2009, Nadia founded Nadia Palacios Architecure + Interiors + Landscape, where she pursues challenges in design and specializes in the creation of Homes and Gardens.
Nadia draws inspiration from many sources, particularly from her travels through Europe and Latin America, and she believes that architecture must stand the test of time and trends, that all spaces must be livable and human in scale, and that everything built must be beautiful.
Nadia lives with her husband John and sons Alexander and Lorenzo in a 1920’s bungalow in Houston’s Heights neighborhood; in her free time, she enjoys drawing, dancing Flamenco, and volunteering at the The Houston Area Women’s Center. She is a 2013 recipient of a “Stars on the Rise” award, a founding member of the Texas Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, an inductee of The Urban Guild, a member of the American Institute of Architects, the Texas Society of Architects, the American Society of Interior Designers, the Design Leadership Network (DLN), and the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture, and Urbanism (INTBAU). She is a frequent guest critic at her alma mater, and a passionate mentor for the University of Houston’s Future Women in Architecture.
About Tony Diaz
Writer and activist Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, is a Cultural Accelerator. He was the first Chicano to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. In 1998, he founded Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say (NP), Houston’s first reading series for Latino authors. The group galvanized Houston’s Community Cultural Capital to become a movement for civil rights, education, and representation. When Arizona officials banned Mexican American Studies, Diaz and four veteran members of NP organized the 2012 Librotraficante Caravan to smuggle books from the banned curriculum back into Arizona. He is the author of The Aztec Love God. His book, The Tip of the Pyramid: Cultivating Community Cultural Capital, is the first in his series on Community Organizing.
Latinos in Architecture COLORES Sponsors
Information about becoming a sponsor can be found here.
Platinum Sponsor
HOK
LESCO Architectural Lighting
Page
TATEMÓ
Gold Sponsors
Allegion
cre8 Architects
Gage Architecture
Kirksey Architecture
Silver Sponsors
C.A. Walking Construction
Durotech
GSMA
MACO Construction
Martinez Architects
MATRIX Structural
MWA Architects
Perkins&Will
Powers Brown Architecture
RDLR Architects
Bronze Sponsors
Bass Construction
Daltile
DBR Engineering
DOOR Engineering
IMEG
Raba Kistner
Tarkett
