Articles by Mónica Arellano

Recent years have seen a dramatic transformation in population distribution: today, more than half of the world’s population now lives in cities. In parallel fashion, housing and work spaces have all increasingly embraced the communal, resembling the impulse toward public spaces in new cities. 

The aquarium project was a part of a large-scale plan to revitalize the Parque Central in Mazatlán, Mexico. The project, designed and overseen by Tatiana Bilbao Estudio, seeks to build onto the already existing natural, cultural, and public space in a way that highlights its global quality and uniqueness. For visitors, the aquarium is an opportunity to explore and experience the marine ecosystems of the Gulf of California. For locals, it’s a look into the marvels of their own backyard. In this interview, we sit down with Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao and get the details about the project, its design, and the challenges that come with building one of the largest aquariums in Latin America.

The United States of America has provided enormous opportunities to develop some of the most iconic buildings in the history of architecture, leaving the mark of important architects in urban, suburban, and rural areas around the country. However, ambitious ideas often come with a high price that cannot always be paid,  causing some of the most exciting building, bridge, and tower designs to never evolve past archived plans.

DROP-A-PIN is a project founded by a couple dedicated to architecture and graphic design who have traveled the last five years to document some of the most fascinating buildings. Within this process, about a year ago, they wanted to find a pin with some of these great works. As they failed to, the duo decided to create it themselves.

Concrete, a material commonly used in the construction industry, is made of a binder combined with aggregates (or gravels), water, and certain additives. Its origins reach back as far as Ancient Egypt, when the construction of large structures created the need for a new kind of material: one which was liquid, featured properties of natural stones, could be molded, and communicated a sense of nobility and grandeur. 

Superstudio and Archigram were the pioneers of the dystopia they had popularized in 1960, when they experienced a crisis that tore world economies, positioning Italy in a historic moment of boom and bust that harbored dreams and despair.

Yesterday, July 30, 2019, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia died at 78 years of age —56 years ago the architect founded – together with Adolfo Natalini – one of the most important offices of radical post-war architecture in Italy, Superstudio, which, during the 60’s and early 70’s, focused on the form of a strong critique of the production methods of design and architecture. All this analysis was reflected in a very different way of representing architecture, collages, experiments, manifestos, furniture, stories, storyboards, etc. This approach has unleashed multiple discussions that remained valid to this day among the younger generations, which have resumed these modes of criticism to apply them to new ways of producing and thinking about architecture.

In 1919, the creation of the Bauhaus school in Germany marked an important moment in the history of architecture, one that would ignite innumerable debates about architecture and design for years to come. This school, which later became more of a movement than an institution, faced an array of political resistance throughout its existence, eventually closing its doors in 1933 during the Nazi regime. However, the knowledge instilled by the Bauhaus transcended time and space to travel across the globe and make its mark on cities worldwide.

The relationship between the human body and architecture has always been a key element in architectural design and practice, however, the connection between the two wasn’t documented or even accepted until the rise of ergonomics some years ago. Nowadays, the question is how is the body perceived in modern times? How does this perception influence the way we design the buildings and spaces that we inhabit? Too often, ergonomics is seen as a discipline that emphasizes the separation between body and object; however, not only is it the connection between them, it is also the pre-established blueprint that maximizes and synchronizes their productivity. At its most basic level, it’s a technical discourse on the increasingly mechanized human dwelling. 

The presence of Mexican architecture on the global scene is increasingly evident and strengthened by the ambassador architects who constantly represent Mexico in international events and exhibitions. Within these samples, you are able to see a constant concern to show contemporary values that denote a sense of responsibility, reinventing their own identity with the urgency of addressing current challenges.