Gabriela Medrano was born in Quito, Ecuador, in 1982 and later took Chilean citizenship. She trained as an architect at the Universidad Andrés Bello in Santiago, graduating in 2008, and began working with Smiljan Radić that same year. In 2011 she won, with Radić and Eduardo Castillo, the open competition for the Biobío Regional Theatre in Concepción, completed in 2018 and awarded the grand prize at the 2022 Pan-American Architecture Biennial in Quito; the Design Museum in London shortlisted it for its Beazley Designs of the Year in 2018. In 2014 she and Radić won a second competition, with Ricardo Serpell, for a telecommunications tower on Santiago's Cerro San Cristóbal, which was never built. Since 2013 she has taught at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, the University of Chile and the University of Talca, and since 2018 has made temporary civic interventions in public space.
