CC ARQUITECTOS lecture
April 20, 2015
Recorded: March 5, 2015
The Architectural League’s Emerging Voices program annually spotlights North American architects, landscape architects, and urban designers who have significant bodies of realized work and the potential to influence their field.
Manuel Cervantes Cespedes of MANUEL CERVANTES CESPEDES / CC ARQUITECTOS is a 2015 winner of the award.
Drawing from a heritage of Mexican modernism and characterized by “knowing when to stop,” MANUEL CERVANTES CESPEDES / CC ARQUITECTOS designs buildings with structural clarity and elemental forms. Founded by Manuel Cervantes Cespedes in Mexico City in 2005, the firm finds opportunity in constraints — regulatory, economic, programmatic — and develops projects with consideration for “minimizing complexity.”
In his Emerging Voices lecture, Cervantes Cespedes shares four recently completed buildings. Donceles 54 in downtown Mexico City is a restored 1870 building transformed into living and studio spaces. El Rosario, a mixed-use transit hub in Mexico City designed around natural light and ventilation, is one of a series of transit-oriented developments designed to draw people from the surrounding Hidalgo State into the city proper. The Equestrian Project is a barn-style country home that houses both people and horses within the same structure. The form is a repetition of the building’s section, which is carefully inserted into the landscape to work with the topography. Finally, the Hydroponic Plant Next is an industrialized landscape that seeks a departure from the standard corporate office space in favor of a “more personal” working environment that prioritizes the plant’s employees.
Recorded: March 5, 2015