These days, it is common to hear multiple voices addressing the diverse issues of contemporary architecture. The topics are numerous, ranging from sustainability and inclusion to social justice and the crisis in land use. At first glance, there is no common ground where all these concepts can coexist transversally. However, if we look back, we can see that beyond the formal architectural concepts, the true purpose of architecture (probably) lies in the people and the lives that develop within it.
Thus, many would argue that life is likely more important than architecture, which could open up a broad debate. What is certain is that currently, narratives and voices are emerging and consolidating, aimed at renewing architectural tools and languages. This transformation seeks to turn the built environment into a space that promotes a more equitable and optimistic future for all. One of these voices is that of Tatiana Bilbao, recognized for her process-centered approach where life and human interactions play a crucial role in defining habitats.
In the framework of Inflections 2024, organized by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), the School of Architecture, Art, and Design (EAAD) of the Tecnológico de Monterrey, along with the Association of Architecture Education Institutions of the Mexican Republic (ASINEA), Tatiana Bilbao presented the inaugural lecture. Furthermore, in conversation with ArchDaily, she reflected on identity, locality, and the role of housing and human relations in architecture.
Enrique Tovar (ArchDaily): In the development of your work—from the exhibition hall in Jinhua, China, to the Cortés Sea Research Center in Mazatlan, Mexico—, a transformation in geometric and compositional aspects is perceptible. What would you say has changed for you from your first project to today?
Tatiana Bilbao: Everything has changed but nothing has changed profoundly. What has not changed is my conception of what I think architecture is. What has changed is my confidence in my ability to find what I believe in. In the beginning, I was trying to fit into this world that I had been exposed to and wanted to participate in. Somehow, I was doing what I thought I had been taught to do. Over time, I realized that I didn't believe in that way of doing architecture, and, little by little, I began to integrate more honestly with who I am. That never changed.
ET: Architecture in Latin America, and more broadly in the Global South, has deep legacies of traditional processes strongly linked to the materials and manual skills of the region's workers. How do you integrate identity into your processes through construction techniques and material selection?
TB: Identity is inherent and cannot be usurped; it is something you possess. In my case, my identity is framed within a very specific context: that of a family of Spanish refugees in Mexico City, amidst a highly political environment where I do not originate from a native people. That is my identity. That is why I mention that identity is not usurped, you have it where you come from. What I think I do have embedded is the locality. This is why my family integrated so well into this context: due to a profound interest and concern for others, a capacity for understanding, and a deep appreciation for community.
Identity is inherent and cannot be usurped; it is something you possess. -Tatiana Bilbao
ET: Do you think your process would be different if you hadn't been grounded in Mexican materials and techniques?
TB: Yes, because I would be influenced by what I would have lived through. One thing you might notice when considering my family is that we are refugees from the civil war and immigrants. So I think something that's embedded in that is, in a way, respect for welcoming, adaptability, and resilience in a new country. I think this is also part of Mexico's culture. We have this capacity to reinvent ourselves with what exists, with what there is, and with what we are given. Not only to reinvent ourselves, but to invent, to create, dismantle, and build an entire country with the resources at hand. It is a very different capacity that this country has given me, the ability to be very creative with the resources I have, something that does not exist in other contexts where there is much more abundance.
ET: In a conversation with Jacques Herzog, you mentioned that in the past, parametricism driven by software tended to be the norm, whereas you chose to continue exploring analog processes. Today we seem to be experiencing a transition to the hyper-technological at the hands of AI. How do you maintain a human focus in your designs and avoid letting technology dominate the process?
TB: I firmly believe that we are human beings and physical entities. Technology will never be more than a tool; it cannot replace the physical relationships we have and need with others. I don't believe that a robot can sustain life, and maybe life will prove otherwise; let's see if it does. For now, I remain with the need for these physical relationships. We need them and will always need them; without each other, we cannot exist. We living, organic beings exist physically on this planet, and we need these physical walls to inhabit it. We cannot live in a digital world; we may think we live there, but at the end of the day, it is these walls that sustain us. Technology will be one more tool, like the ones we have used until today, to keep doing what we do.
Technology will never be more than a tool; it cannot replace the physical relationships we have and need with others.
ET: You have also discussed the importance of housing in people's lives, not just as a space for daily activities, but as a fundamental need for shelter. What common ground exists between housing projects with ample resources and social housing projects operating on limited budgets?
TB: All they have in common is exactly that: we all have a physical need for a roof over our heads to inhabit this planet. All the projects I do are based on that. There are projects with more resources available and others with less. What I like to think is that one should always—but especially in cases where people think they have everything—only use what is necessary for their life and lifestyle. Using resources efficiently has always been a prerogative in the office, in any project.
ET: Addressing social and community issues, which seem to be on the rise in the global context due to weather and social events, how do you think architecture can play a more active role in social transformation?
TB: Architecture urgently needs to play a more active role in many ways. The first—if we can call it physical—I think everyone is aware of: ensuring that the building is constructed responsibly and causes minimal destruction. But I think buildings must be deeply understood as a means to exist on this planet. Today they are becoming limits. We are constructing buildings that dis-adapt people from their natural environment. Today, no one knows how to live without artificial light, air conditioning or heating, when buildings could be more resilient and, for example, control the temperature as it was done since ancient times, but now better, with the technology we have, not through it. We must have the capacity to allow human beings to be more resilient. Today some people live at 22 degrees Celsius all their lives, from birth to death, regardless of the temperature of the fluctuating environment, and if they leave that temperature they get sick, literally. So architecture is very much to blame. It is necessary to readapt human beings to their natural environment, and to their ecosystem.
Secondly, the human being, by nature, is a social being. We do not exist without the other, and architecture pretends to think that it can sustain a human being without any other need, without the other and anyone. Because we have made everything more and more compartmentalized and I think that is another great fault of architecture. It could be very different, having the capacity to sustain the individual within their society, to be able to integrate them.
I think buildings must be deeply understood as a means to exist on this planet. Today they are becoming limits.
ET: To conclude, ideally, the architecture we produce will remain much longer than we do. For you, what is the key for projects to remain relevant over time?
TB: Architecture is something extremely determined and determinant that sustains an evolutionary and mutant process, which is life. Life changes every second, but architecture never changes. Thinking about how these two entities coexist has been the work of our entire career, the question we ask ourselves when making a habitable ruin or a house without labels. The fundamental question is: How can these two conditions coexist more efficiently?
