Francisco Pardo is co-founder of At103 in Mexico D.F. and also a visiting professor this semester, Fall 2010. Prior to establishing his own firm, he worked for ChoSlade Architecture in New York City and for TEN Arquitectos in Mexico City and New York. He has a Master's of Architecture from Columbia University and a Construction Direction Degree from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain) and Anahuac University (Mexico). He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Pratt Institute in New York, the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, and the Universidad Anáhuac. Currently, he is the leading architecture professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.
By Cesar Murillo
In our conversation led by Francisco Pardo, he introduced a neighborhood redesign for an international competition. The design included the restoration of existing buildings in the poorest communities of Mexico D.F. These building-types are commonly known as a 'Vecindad'--a building containing several (often low-income oriented) housing units. Initially, as a form of housing created through the subdivision of vacated elite housing in historic parts of Mexican cities, where rooms around a central patio allow families to share facilities (such as lavatories and/or kitchens) with other tenants.
[typical vecindad type in Mexico D.F.]
The study explored the possibilities of adding levels to create skyscrapers on the existing structures. As a way to revitalize these parts of D.F., the vecindades would integrate commercial and living spaces. Thus the creation of new vehiclular and pedestrain transit, and even street vendors, would help promote a new sense of security--as the residences would become vigilantes, or 'street-watchers'--as Pardo called them. This project addresses the 'social responsibility' of Pardo's architecture to the sometimes-forgotten communities of Mexico. Similar to the ideas of David Diaz's Barrio Urbanism, Pardo concluded that these communities are incidentally sustainable. These people share common spaces in form of patios-acknowledging a traditional Spanish typology of form. The patio becomes the central space of community and interaction among residences. As integrating the forgotten neighborhoods of one of the biggest cities in the world, Pardo hopes to one day see more projects like 'La Nueva' Vecindad in urban habitats. Pardo explained that the types of projects and design values that he advocates create the 'Modern Mexican' architecture. "It's not about aesthetic..there is no real Mexican aesthetic," Pardo acknowledged. "Why do we need one? ...who decides what Mexican looks like?" he concluded.
[other works by at103, check out their site: http://www.at103.net/]
