Current Work is a lecture series featuring leading figures in the worlds of architecture, urbanism, design, and art.

Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO analyzes urban and social issues to rethink how spaces can be “reactive to global capitalism, opening up niches for cultural and economic development.” Bilbao founded the multidisciplinary practice in 2004 in Mexico City.

At the 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial, Bilbao presented a full-scale affordable home prototype intended to be constructed in Mexico for anywhere between $8,000 and $14,000. Its design was developed based on her extended interviews, workshops, and qualitative research conducted with prospective Mexican tenants. The investigation resulted in a modular home constructed from a concrete core and brise-soliels made from reclaimed wood palettes that can be re-positioned to adapt to geographic, social, and budgetary constraints.

Using similar investigative strategies, the firm has designed affordable housing complexes in Ciudad Acuña and Chiapas, both in Mexico. Other recent projects include a mixed-use building for the University of Monterrey; the Adrastus Collection Museum in Arévalo, Spain; and an open-air chapel for Ruta del Pelegrino, said to be the most traveled pilgrimage route in Mexico. The firm also designed Culiacán Botanical Garden in Sinaloa, Mexico, which features 35 different works from international contemporary artists.

Tatiana Bilbao received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Universidad Iberoamericana in 1996 and currently teaches at Yale School of Architecture as the Norman R. Foster Visiting Professor and at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. In 2016, she was shortlisted for Architectural Review’s Woman Architect of the Year Award. Architectural Record awarded the firm the 2007 Design Vanguard Award and in 2014, it received the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture from the LOCUS Foundation. Bilbao was named one of The Architectural League’s 2010 Emerging Voices.

After the lecture, Hilary Sample will moderate a discussion with Bilbao. Sample is an architect and co-founder of New York-based MOS, recipient of The Architectural League’s Emerging Voices honor in 2008, the National Design Award from the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt 2015, and the subject of El Croquis #184. She is also an Associate Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

This lecture is co-sponsored by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union. It is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.