BUILDO

Manuel Vizcaino designed his first house at 23 before coming to the AA. He has a background in finance and started Buildo in 2002. The designs are computer based, which are then adapted to local building conditions to create a dialogue between high and low tech. This aesthetic is proving successful with luxury villas being snapped up by Mexican celebrities and soccer players.

The practice is also at the forefront of environmental design in Guadalajara. Manuel is collaborating with Patricio Arce on an energy efficient shopping centre that has caught the eye of HSBC - the bank has approached them to create a strategy to roll out 200 small scale eco-banks across Mexico.

Manuel and Patricio are also collaborating on a 12km street refubishment of Lopes Cotilla in downtown Guadalajara for the municipal government.

Buildo's office (below) was designed by Manuel with his father, a more traditional architect, and is a modern extension to an older building.






Breakfast with Manuel Vizcaino at Cafe Barra Cafe, a building he had originally designed at 28 for a local florist.

COLECTIVO GUAYABA

The collective was started almost as as hobby by a group of young architects and graphic designers to pursue ideas and that were not being satisfied in their dayjobs. They meet once a week to discuss whatever is on their mind and the office has a small multi-disciplinary staff to deliver projects. The formula is working. They have been selected to design two of the new residential buildings for the Panamerican Games taking place in Guadalajara in 2011.

A model of one of the buildings for the Panamerican Games.

The front lawn / cactus garden.

ONE NIGHT IN DE LA PENA

Overnight stay in a classic modernist house in Guadalajara.

GUADALAJARA

My guides to Guadalajara, Patricio Arce and Chely Gómez...

A BRIEF ARCHI-TOUR OF MEXICO CITY

...by artists Francisca Rivero-Lake, Carla Verea and Luciano Matus, with Simon Fujiwara, Ingar Dragset and Darin Klein.
The studios of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, with cactus fence.




Heading down to the modern university campus in the south of Mexico City.


A pictorial guide to how Mexico City has developed over the years, over Mescal at Los Danzantes.

A drink stop at El Mayor during a walk through the colonial centre.
The view from the Torre Latinamericana.

And Luciano's late night tour.

AT HOME WITH CARLA AND FRANCISCA

Artists Carla Verea and Francisca Rivero-Lake were my hosts and guides to Mexico City. They work together and individually on projects that often have a strong relationship to architecture and space. Carla's photography of Guatemalan bodyguards has been exhibited internationally, and her recent commission of Barragan's Mexico City apartment buildings is part of the current Barragan show. Francisca's site-specific sound art project, Sound Oasis / Oasis Sonoro, is created in response to urban spaces and situations.



Guatemalan bodyguards

Inside Carla's photography studio

LUCIANO MATUS

Artist Luciano Matus was trained as an architect and has been producing work that reveals the possibilities of spaces. He has a major installation planned for Mexico City at the end of 2009, and has also been commissioned to design his first house. The photos are from his publication that documents a recent project that involved interventions in historical buildings and public spaces in Antigua, Guatemala; Cartagena de Indias, Colombia; Lima and Cusco, Peru; and in the Jesuit missions of Paraguay.

JOSE CASTILLO AND SAIDEE SPRINGALL / ARQUITECTURA 911SC

Jose and Saidee run Arquitectura 911sc, an architecture practice that is leading the field in Mexico on urban projects. The 20-strong practice is currently developing two large transportation projects for the Federal District Government and the State of Mexico, introducing BRTs (Bus Rapid Transport) to new stretches of Mexico City in 2009. These are the 'Eje Central' running 12km North / South through the centre of Mexico City, and an 18km route that heads east from the airport into the neighbourhoods of Neza and Chimalhuacan. The latter reaches a population of 2 million people that previously have not had access to public transport. A further urban project is for a streetscape and urban renewal in Tlalpan.

Jose has also been responsible for curating exhibitions on Mexico's contemporary architects, including the AIA's Mexico City Dialogues exhibition in 2005.