area 108 | Mexico City

architect: Tatiana Bilbao

location: Mexico City

year: 2008

This artist’s studio is located in a residential area in the west corner of Mexico City, over a 20m x 40m site. The project has an underground parking space and its formed by a building with 3 levels (a triple-height space, offices on the third level and a service area on the roof), with a very specific architectural program. There were two conditions: on one hand, to be used as a studio and, on the other, to serve as venue for private temporary exhibits. The client asked us for the next spaces: one apartment for guests artists that could stay for a time while developing a practice or a show, a 9x9x9mt space for work or exhibit, one Studio / Office, one kitchen in the large space to use as a side bar for openings and parking for 25 cars.
The project conditions itself to the centre of the space, both the east and the west sides open up, this allows viewing of the trees and gardens on the site. A 14 x 8 mt cantilevered concrete structure covers the exterior program, used for different open-air activities such as lectures, exhibitions or just as a meditating area. The concrete cantilevered structure contains the studio and office spaces that over looks the main space of the exhibit area. This project is mainly interested in its spatial qualities, than in the programmatic conditions itself, due to its multiple and diverse events. All the building is exposed in white concrete.

Born in Mexico City in 1972. Graduated form Universidad Iberoamericana in 1996. Tatiana Bilbao S.C. is a multidisciplinary office that has architectural design practice as the main founded in 2004; the study analyzes urban and social crises, as well as the rigid codes of communication and telematics. Through these strands, the office, regenerates spaces ”humanized” to be aware and react of global capitalism, opening up niches for cultural and economic development. Creating a climate of collaboration where there are various disciplinary resonances in technical areas, theoretical and artistic works which, in one way or another believing that they affect the patterns and structures of society. In this way, there are intelligent buildings tending the ecological impact, which open channels of communication between the various social sectors, and detonate productive activities that enable different aesthetic experiences.