Tatiana Bilbao’s foray into sustainable design, social housing, and, by association, an eponymous studio occurred after she worked as an advisor for urban projects at the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, Mexico City. Discouraged by the bureaucratic nature of the work, she realised that the designs the government was building were power-centric instead of people-centric.
In an interview, the architect mentioned “I don’t work as an architect – I am an architect, and I don’t see that as a burden! I do this because I am this!”
This is at the core of Tatiana Bilbao Estudio’s – identity.
Based in Mexico City, Mexico, the Tatiana Bilbao Estudio has projects all over its home country, the United States of America, Guatemala, and Germany, among other places. The firm focuses on sustainable design and designs that question the status quo and stresses the importance of designing towards creating social justice, stronger communities and a healthy ecosystem.
Core values
The 1985 earthquake that hit Mexico came with a severe housing crisis that prompted the government to mass-produce houses with over 2.5 million houses being built over six years. But the houses, like most social housing, tend to, were bereft of identity. Tatiana Bilbao’s stint at the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing further cemented the architect’s core values of what kind of architecture she needs to bring into the world.
In her book, ‘A House is Not Just a House’, the founder wrote “We can’t forget that housing is a human right. Houses are not just for sale. Houses are for people, and we have to think of them first.”
At the core of Tatiana Bilbao Estudio, lies the architect’s respect for identity and people-centric design. Designs that do more than just shelter, that build communities.
The studio’s founding in 2004 was inspired by Tatiana Bilbao’s fundamental values of architecture benefitting every individual.
The studio’s design language utilises rudimentary forms that tell a unique story, forms that are beautiful without challenging gravity. Forms that are direct and pure, forms that include the user and viewer.
If one is to visit the website of the Tatiana Bilbao Estudio, they are greeted by a city map that illustrates their projects across the world. To the viewer it represents the studio’s values of a project not being standalone but rather a representation of its site context, the communities it shelters, the people it houses and the purpose it serves on a social scale.
Design Process
In today’s day and age of technology, the Tatiana Bilbao Estudio continues to initaite its design process through analog means.
Physical drawings and sketches serve as the foundation for the firm’s design process. The drawings tend to help the architect “manifest ideas of the physical world”. Through a series composed of hand drawings and digital photographs, a consistent design process emerges.
The studio makes optimum use of both- analog and digital- mediums to create a design language that is unique to them and their values. Tatiana Bilbao, the founder, has spoken about the place of technology in the design process and is of the firm belief that nothing can replace the physical relationships we share and the analog process is an extension of those same relationships.
Exhibition Room, Jinhua Architecture Park, China, 2007
Ai Weiwei, the planner and curator of the Jinhua Architecture Park, selected Tatiana Bilbao with 16 other architects to design exhibition pavilions for the park.
The Exhibition Room by Tatiana Bilbao is inspired by the journey of exploration around traditional Chinese gardens.
Traditional Chinese gardens have fixed points of observation. The user is guided to these points by design interventions like pathways, tunnels, bridges, and corridors. Thus, to experience the entire garden as a whole, the user has to traverse through these interventions on a journey of experience. Through various points that open to different views, the user observes the garden as a whole.
Materials like concrete, glass and stone are used as a juxtaposition to the concept of the exhibition room. With irregular volumes, the pavilion surprises the user with every tunnel, pathway, and terrace that lets the user view the multi-functional space from different points.
One of the first few projects undertaken by the Tatiana Bilbao Estudio, the Exhibition room is comprised of a multi-functional, flexible space that can be utilized for various types of events.
Housing+, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico and Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico, 2015
Faced with a pressing shortage of housing, the tornado that struck the city of Acuna in 2015 left over one thousand homes damaged and around a hundred destroyed. The Tatiana Bilbao Estudio was commissioned to develop a new model of social housing and revitalise the affected areas.
This model was created after on-site interviews, material research and workshops. The interviews revealed one of the biggest expectations of Mexican people in regards to their house- they wanted it to look complete.
The prototype, first unveiled at the Chicago Biennial, is a gable sliced volume with cinder blocks at its core. The unique design of the house makes sure that the user can expand it in multiple ways in future but the structure will always have a finished, complete look, irrespective of expansion.
It also expands on the area requirements set by the federal government on social housing with the area of one unit being 52 sq m instead of the required 43 sq m.
The first phase of the house includes two bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 kitchen and a 5-meter height dining/living room.
Sea of Cortez Research Center, Mazatlan Mexico, 2023
In an interview, when prompted by the statement ‘Utopia is not relevant’, Tatiana Bilbao says “We should not project the future, we should imagine the future.”
The Sea of Cortez Research Center is an attempt at imagining it.
The Center sits by Mazatlan’s coastal boardwalk, overlooking the Sea of Cortez commonly known as the Gulf of California. It is aimed at regenerating the Mazatlan Central Park, also a project by the Tatiana Bilbao Estudio.
Imagined as a ruin with a thriving ecosystem left by the receding waters in the year 2227 and discovered in 2289, the Research Center is pure geometric forms and straight lines with seemingly rigid vertical walls. The walls emerge at some points, intersect at others and recede at yet others.
The space is smattered by negative and positive spaces, letting nature take control at some points while still establishing a relationship between the built and natural.
The Gulf of California is among the world’s most diverse, with home to around 5000 micro-vertebrate species. The Center, which is classified under the aquarium typology, aims to amalgamate the experience of the marine ecosystem of the Gulf with architecture that responds to it in kind.
The educational and research center spans three floors, with the users starting their journey from the roof garden, accessed by flight of stairs at each end of the building, and descending their way to the exhibit areas and such. The ground floor comprises administrative areas and a large part of marine life conservation with the first floor consisting of a general access plaza and exhibit space among others. The last floor has remaining facilities and support for the marine life and staff areas.
The Tatiana Bilbao Estudio has designs across the world, all with a story to tell. A story that represents the values of the founder. A story that includes the user in it. A story that speaks of a time that has passed and has yet to come.
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