Dellekamp Arquitectos

Dellekamp Arquitectos | La Capital, Mexico City, Mexico, 2008. Credit: Iwan Baan

The Architectural League’s annual Emerging Voices program spotlights North American architects, landscape architects, and urban designers who have significant bodies of realized work and the potential to influence their field.

Dellekamp Arquitectos won a 2009 award.

Dellekamp Arquitectos was founded by Derek Dellekamp in 1999. The Mexico City firm frequently partners with artists, designers, environmental experts, engineers, and builders to shape each project. The firm states: “We try to begin each project without a preconceived idea of its outcome; we deliberately allow for outside influences to shape the design. Our goal is for the work to achieve a wider relevance by adapting and synthesizing these externalities.”

In 2003, together with Rojkind arquitectos and mxa/Tatiana Bilbao, Dellekamp Arquitectos founded MXDF Urban Research Center to develop integrated approaches and investigations for current project sites, as well as the intricate urban reality of Mexico City.

Recent and current projects include the apartment buildings Alfonso Reyes 58, CB 30, and CB 29, all in Mexico City; Villa 14, Ordos, China; “Living in Here,” a social housing proposal at the 11th International Exhibition Venice Biennale 2008; House on a Slope, Mexico City; and La Capital, a restaurant in Mexico City.

Dellekamp Arquitectos is the recipient of a 2008 International Architecture Award and was cited by Wallpaper as one of the world’s 101 most exciting new architects in the magazine’s 2007 article “Wallpaper’s Architects Directory 2007.” The firm’s work has been widely exhibited, including at the Venice Biennale, Guangzhou Second Triennale, and the Center for Architecture, NY, and has been published in Dwell, Space Magazine, Arquine, and The New York Times.

Derek Dellekamp received his BArch from Iberoamericana University, where he now teaches in the department of architecture.