For a budding Cuernavaca structure observe, design is ‘dialog’

Alessandra de Mitri began out finding out structure on the UK’s Oxford Brookes College, however felt disheartened by the programme. She sought a extra experiential method, one which handled house not merely as construction however as a medium for lived expertise. This led her to Switzerland’s Mendrisio Academy, the place the curriculum centered on phenomenology, emotional resonance and sensory notion. Right here she met Roberto Rodríguez, an architect from Mexico Metropolis who had arrived at Mendrisio pushed by a curiosity that mirrored her personal.

Meet Rodríguez + De Mitri, the younger structure studio from Cuernavaca

After internships with the likes of Francis Keré and Flores & Prats, the pair graduated within the midst of a worldwide pandemic. Rodríguez returned to Mexico Metropolis, the place he started working at TAX, underneath celebrated architect Alberto Kalach. Quickly after, de Mitri adopted, taking jobs on the studios of Mauricio Rocha and Ignacio Urquiza.

Because it occurs, their debut fee got here via a private connection: a household buddy really helpful them for a plant nursery that may assist the reforestation efforts of the Sian Ka’an biosphere reserve in Quintana Roo, which had been severely broken by fires in 2019.

Modest in scale however formidable in intention, the reforestation nursery was a prefabricated construction of galvanised metal, draped in agricultural mesh and raised above floor to go away minimal impression on the delicate panorama and cut back the chance of plant illness. It was the primary undertaking that Rodríguez and de Mitri formally designed collectively, however years of educational collaboration had already attuned them to a clean cycle of mutual suggestions. ‘The Mendrisio tradition encourages open critiques and fixed dialogue,’ says Rodríguez. ‘It’s nonetheless a part of our course of – design as dialog,’ provides de Mitri.

Their second undertaking, a three-unit housing growth on a 200 sq m plot, marked a turning level. ‘It was extra complicated than the nursery,’ Rodríguez recollects. ‘All uncovered brick and concrete, full-scale supervision.’

Once they formally based Rodríguez + de Mitri, it was with the intention of approaching structure on their very own phrases. ‘We attempt to rethink structural programs and materials origins, to suggest lighter, much less typical options,’ says Rodríguez. Echoes de Mitri, ‘It’s about designing in damaging, eager about what might be eliminated, utilizing the minimal supplies wanted.’

This method, she says, ‘has an moral in addition to an aesthetic dimension.’ Their budding observe insists that structure be measured, intentional and attentive – an area the place each materials, void and gesture serves a objective, permitting each the setting and its inhabitants to breathe.