PILARES: Centering Community
Leading architecture firms gather online to discuss their community center designs for Mexico City’s PILARES initiative.
October 12, 2022
6:00 p.m.
Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura | PILARES Presidentes de México, Mexico City, Mexico, 2022. Image credit: Sandra Pereznieto
Current Work is a lecture series featuring leading figures in the worlds of architecture, urbanism, design, and art.
The fall 2022 Current Work series examines projects and firms enacting new modes of architectural practice, collaboration, and community engagement.
Mexico City’s PILARES (Puntos de Innovación, Libertad, Arte, Educación y Saberes, or Points of Innovation, Freedom, Art, Education, and Knowledge) projects are a series of over 250 (built and in-progress) public community centers. Located predominantly in low-income neighborhoods, these centers provide spaces for a wide range of free programs, including arts, sports, education, and professional development.
In 2020, the mayor’s office commissioned 25 notable design firms and partnerships to create architecturally ambitious PILARES centers. This Current Work program will feature nine of these projects as presented by the following firms:
- a | 911
- Fernanda Canales Arquitectura
- Francisco Pardo Arquitecto
- FIERRO
- Palma
- PRODUCTORA
- Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura
- Taller Gabriela Carrillo
- TEN Arquitectos
- AGENdA
- TO
- WORKac
- IUA Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos
The presentations will be introduced by Carlos Zedillo Velasco. Zedillo Velasco, whose career has been dedicated to promoting collaborative design processes, served as the architectural coordinator of the PILARES initiative, working as a consultant to the Mexico City government. He previously directed the Research Center for Sustainable Development at Mexico’s National Housing Fund for Workers (often referred to by its acronym in Spanish, INFONAVIT). With his brother Rodrigo Zedillo Velasco, he founded Pienza Sostenible, a nonprofit organization that explores contemporary Mexican conditions in relation to the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Zedillo Velasco holds an MArch and a bachelor’s degree in art and architecture, both from the Yale School of Architecture. He currently practices architecture and planning in Mexico City.
The presentations will be followed by a conversation and Q&A with Mexico City-born journalist and researcher Suleman Anaya. Anaya’s work—often dealing with historic and contemporary Mexican architecture and design—has appeared in T, Aperture, The Architectural Review, PIN-UP, Vanity Fair, and Apartamento. Anaya currently splits his time between Queens, New York, and Coyoacán, Mexico.
Projects to be discussed include:
PILARES Valentín Gómez Farías
3
Firm presenting the project:
a | 911
Location: Mexico City
Established: 2002
Founders: Jose Castillo, Saidee Springall
PILARES Flor de Azucena
3
Firm presenting the project:
Fernanda Canales Arquitectura
Location: Mexico City
Established: 2002
Founder: Fernanda Canales
PILARES Cuauhtémoc
3
Firms presenting the project:
Francisco Pardo Arquitecto
Location: Mexico City
Founder: Francisco Pardo
FIERRO
Location: New York City
Established: 2010
Founder: Laura González Fierro
PILARES Brigada Alfonso
3
Firms presenting the project:
Palma
Location: Mexico City and Sayulita, Mexico
Established: 2016
Founders: Ilse Cárdenas, Regina de Hoyos, Diego Escamilla, Juan Luis Rivera
PRODUCTORA
Location: Mexico City
Established: 2006
Founders: Carlos Bedoya, Wonne Ickx, Victor Jaime, Abel Perles
Additional members of the design team:
Pienza Sostenible
PILARES Presidentes de México
3
Firm presenting the project:
Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura
Location: Mexico City
Established: 2009
Founder: Rozana Montiel
PILARES Tierra Unida
3
Firm presenting the project:
Taller Gabriela Carrillo
Location: Mexico City
Established: 2017
Founder: Gabriela Carrillo
Additional members of the design team:
Síntesis Arquitectura
PILARES Lomas de Plateros
3
Firm presenting the project:
TEN Arquitectos
Location: Mexico City, New York, and Miami
Established: 1986
Founder: Enrique Norten
PILARES Zapote
3
Firms presenting the project:
AGENdA
Location: Mexico City
Established: 2010
Founders: Camilo Restrepo Ochoa, Juliana Gallego Martínez
TO
Location: Mexico City
Established: 2015
Founders: Jose Amozurrutia, Carlos Facio
Additional members of the design team:
+UdeB Arquuitectos
PILARES Lomas de Becerra
3
Firms presenting the project:
WORKac
Location: New York
Established: 2003
Founders: Amale Andraos, Dan Wood
IUA Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos
Location: Mexico City
Established: 2019
Founder: Ignacio Urquiza Seoane
Support
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
The event is co-sponsored by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union.
