Emerging: from Mexico

MGL: I think what’s happening in Mexico is part of a broader cultural awakening, of which architecture is only one aspect. Suddenly, the world started paying attention to Mexico, and it became culturally significant in a new way. Architecture is part of that larger moment. More specifically, Mexico has an extraordinary architectural heritage, and it goes hand-in-hand with a remarkable tradition of sculpture. If you visit the National Museum of Anthropology, for example, it becomes immediately apparent. Mexico is a country of sculptors and a country of architects.

Another factor, which is perhaps not unique to Mexico but more broadly characteristic of Latin America, is the informality of the architectural process. It’s very different from Europe. For better and for worse, that informality has advantages and disadvantages, but from a creative perspective it allows things to happen more quickly. It also means that architects remain closely involved throughout the entire process. In Mexico, you’re in constant communication with everyone participating in the construction process, whether it’s the carpenter, the craftspeople or any of the other collaborators. It’s a very close and direct relationship, and I don’t think that exists everywhere. Combined with Mexico’s extraordinary tradition of craftsmanship and its rich material culture, this creates a very interesting environment for architectural practice. I think that proximity produces a particularly rich and distinctive architecture.

In my own case, although I’m Mexican, I studied in London and spent several years there. However, I returned to Mexico almost immediately after graduating from the AA - Architectural Association because I recognised that something important was happening here. I could sense that there was real momentum, and I wanted to be part of it. 

Drawing the edge of Mexico City

MGL: I graduated in 2022, and in 2024 I decided to establish my own practice, Taller MGL. The decision was very deliberate. The AA had instilled in me a very independent way of thinking, and I always knew I wanted to build something of my own. I just didn’t know when the right moment would be. For me, that moment came through a FONCA (Jovenes Creadores SACPC) grant, which gave me the confidence to commit fully to my own research and to take the leap. The project that emerged from that research is called Crónicas Periféricas. It became the founding project of my independent practice. 

The proposal was to undertake a drawn expedition, or a drawn investigation, of Mexico City. Over a period of about eight or nine months, I walked the entire length of the Anillo Periférico. It’s this massive, monstrous infrastructure project that forms a ring around Mexico City, approximately 84 kilometres long, tracing a loop around the city at this fascinating point where the urban fabric begins to dissolve and dissipate. Sometimes you’re clearly in the periphery, sometimes you’re not. It became a very interesting frame from which to observe the city. Part of the project was to deliberately and consciously become a tourist in my own city. It was a way of researching and investigating that was quite unorthodox. In many ways it was also performative, because the act itself consisted of walking through a space that had clearly been designed not to be walked. It was about walking in an unwalkable place. From there, I used my perspective and my skills as an architect trained abroad to draw everything as precisely and rigorously as possible. The outcome was a very large printed volume that I call the Atlas, containing maps, drawings, photographs and other material documenting the Anillo Periférico. I spent essentially a year working on it, and it became the starting point of my independent practice.

The project also became a way of thinking about what an architectural practice could be. It is an architectural practice that produces buildings, but one that remains closely connected to academia, research and art. The Atlas led to several series of works and individual pieces that occupy a kind of grey area. They are partly sculpture, partly architecture and partly research. The drawings began as relatively conventional maps and were gradually abstracted into another series, almost like musical scores. From there, I started translating those scores into three-dimensional pieces. That became a rabbit hole of its own, a search for new ways of notating, drawing and representing the city. The project gave me the vote of confidence I needed. In Spanish we would say it allowed me to lanzarme al agua (jump into the water); to take the leap.

Experimenting through scale

MGL: I think the reason I continue working across different scales is partly because it’s faster. Architecture is an extremely slow process. It’s complicated, and so many different factors have to align before a project is realised. Having these parallel forms of practice - whether through research, academia, or object design - creates opportunities to explore ideas much more quickly. They allow me to experiment with materials and form without having to wait for all the conditions required to construct a building. In a sense, they’re almost like sketching in three dimensions.

But it’s also because every practice is going to be working up in scale little by little. Before you get a big commission, you need to have a smaller commission, and before that one, you need to have a smaller one. So I think starting with products, furniture or research is a good base from which you can start working and, over the years, grow little by little in scale and complexity. In my case, it’s both things. I do it consciously as a way of making faster experiments, but I also do it knowing that having an independent practice in architecture is a marathon. You need to be patient. Having something at the scale of an object is a good starting point for more formal and material explorations, but those explorations can also inform something in an architecture project tomorrow. It’s like a little laboratory for a bigger project.

The exhibition at Alcova (presented at Milan Design Week 2026 with the AA), presented one of these ‘little architecture’ pieces. At the same time, I think this multilayered approach is characteristic of many emerging practices in Mexico today. I’m definitely not the only one trying to work in this interdisciplinary and multifaceted way. Many colleagues work on built projects while developing another strand of their practice, whether that is sculpture, photography, research or another discipline. I think that’s an important characteristic of the emerging scene: architecture is becoming increasingly multifaceted and transdisciplinary.

Between academia and practice

MGL: I teach here in Mexico at Universidad Iberoamericana and through the AA Summer School. Teaching is something that genuinely nurtures me. It’s enriching and fun to work with students and to be part of these ongoing conversations. Once you’re fully immersed in professional practice, it’s easy to become disconnected from those questions and curiosities, and teaching helps prevent that. Having one foot in academia and the other in practice benefits both sides. My professional work enriches my teaching, and teaching, in turn, feeds back into my architectural practice.

The Summer School has been particularly important to me because it is part of a broader effort to maintain an exchange between Mexico City and London. I lead the programme with Naso Vargas, whom I met at the AA, and we both see that connection as extremely valuable. This year, the brief was called Learning from Mexico City. We wanted to bring to Mexico something of the AA’s more experimental, slightly crazy dynamic, while taking the city itself as our starting point.

We began by going deep into Mexico City with the students, exploring it and immersing ourselves in it. Most are foreign, so for them much of the city is unfamiliar, but even with the Mexican students we try to create situations in which they encounter things they might otherwise overlook. The idea is that there is always something new to discover in this vast, contradictory city, and something to learn from a distinctly Mexican ingenuity: this ability to improvise and make something out of almost nothing. We then take those observations and experiences and try to channel them into a design exercise. This year, for the first time, we experimented with producing a collective outcome rather than a series of individual projects. It was challenging, but I would also say very successful. In a way, it is an extension of how I want to approach my own practice: Mexico City itself is the biggest reference and source of inspiration.

I try to maintain a similar process for my built work, although construction has taught me how different architecture becomes once it leaves the drawing. Azotea Sagredo, the first built project, became an important learning experience. It was an intervention on a private rooftop in Mexico City, and the brief was deliberately open: it needed to accommodate working, gatherings, parties and potentially other uses over time. That lack of programmatic specificity became very interesting to work with. Rather than designing for a single fixed use, the project became a pavilion in the truest sense: an open, flexible space that frames the views and can adapt to changing needs. Building at the top of the tower also presented significant practical challenges. Transporting materials to the roof was extremely difficult, and those constraints reinforced something I’ve learned repeatedly since leaving school: once a project moves into construction, architecture becomes less about the design itself and more about finding and fighting for all the small practical solutions that allow the design to become reality.

Trusting the marathon of architecture 

MGL: I think building trust is definitely the main challenge in a small practice. It’s something that happens very slowly, project by project. It often begins with something very small, perhaps a piece of furniture. Then, if that goes well, you might be entrusted with something slightly larger. From there, you might have the opportunity to build your first project. Building this trust is a full-time job in itself.

With the project currently under construction, Ébanos, that process has also meant learning from the material and from the people who know how to work with it. The project is in the western part of Mexico City, in Bosques, and the garden is organised through retaining walls and divisions built entirely from volcanic stone. The material is deeply connected to Mexico and particularly to Mexico City because of its volcanic landscape. I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with craftspeople and builders who have an extraordinary knowledge of it. The existing garden was already beautiful, so rather than introducing something completely new, the idea was to take the existing materials, landscape and vocabulary and extend them. The client also insisted that the mature ash trees be the protagonists. The curved geometry of the volcanic stone wall responds to this: it exists because the architecture is responding to one of those trees, almost embracing it.

What I’m really searching for now is a way to translate this whole constellation of interests - research, academia, teaching, product design and architectural practice - into a coherent architectural language. I still think of built practice and academia and art as separate activities, but they are constantly cross-pollinating. The evolution of a practice is both conscious and organic. The way you design and the way you work gradually begin to reflect a broader picture of who you are. Architecture is a marathon, and there is no shortcut. The part that eventually becomes uniquely yours emerges slowly, through conscious effort, experience, and all the things you discover along the way.