Belinda Tato founded ecosistema urbano in 2000 with Jose Luis Vallejo. The firm is a design and consulting company operating within the fields of urbanism, architecture, engineering, and sociology, with offices in Madrid, Spain and Boston, USA.

Belinda Tato is Founder of ecosistema urbano based in Madrid, Spain and Chair of the Holcim Awards 2023 jury for region Europe.

ecosistema urbano is specialized in urban consultancy, architectonic and urban design, public space quality assessment, and urban transformation processes. In recent years, their research has developed around the design of public spaces focusing especially on the improvement of bioclimatic conditions in contexts and climates as diverse as Norway, Florida, or Bahrain.

As a part of their methodology, ecosistema urbano has been developing different tools and participatory techniques to involve citizens in the creative and transformative processes of urban environments. During the last decade, ecosistema urbano has successfully experimented with social software, communication platforms, and the possibilities offered by new technologies to achieve the creation of more democratic urban environments.

ecosistema urbano received the Architectural Association and the Environments, Ecology and Sustainability Research Cluster Award (2006); was nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award for emerging European architects (2007) / European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture; and won the Arquia/Próxima prize presented by the Caja de Arquitectos Foundation (2008) for the best project by young architects. More recently, they received the Golden Prize for Public Space Design at the Taipei Design Award (2022); the J Irwin and Xenia S Miller Prize by the Landmark Columbus Foundation (2020); and the International Prize to Urban Design Practice by the Consejo Superior de los Colegios de Arquitectos de España (CSCAE) in Spain (2017).

Belinda Tato studied architecture at Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid ETSAM, of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). She later studied at The Bartlett School of Planning at University College London, United Kingdom.

ecosistema urbano won a Holcim Awards Silver 2008 for Temporary urban extension in a former landfill in Maribor, Slovenia. The project proposed the revitalization of an existing municipal waste dumping area to create an elevated landscape for public use. It was praised by the jury for “a very smart and economically-efficient solution for the reuse of an otherwise lost and abandoned territory.”

The team from ecosistema urbano also won a Holcim Awards 2005 Acknowledgement prize for Ecological Boulevard in a new urban quarter in Madrid, Spain. The project was commended by the jury for generating a positive impact on the street environment while also serving to call collective attention to environmental concerns. As Vallecas Ecobulevar, the project was completed with funds from the LIFE Program of the European Union and the Municipal Housing and Land Company of the Madrid City Council.