Wikipedia:Rozana Montiel

Rozana Montiel (Mexico City, 1972) is a Mexican designer, architect, and researcher, who is the founder and director of the Mexican-based architectural firm ROZANA MONTIEL | ESTUDIO DE ARQUITECTURA. The interdisciplinary firm focuses on "architectural design, artistic re-conceptualizations of space, and the public domain." Research is an essential part of Montiel's architectural approach as she claims that it provides the context for the content that she creates. She also describes the importance of working with communities and for communities when it comes to social projects.

Montiel received a Bachelors of Arts with honors in Architecture and Urban Planning from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City in 1998 and she received her Masters of Arts in Architectural Theory and Criticism from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain in 2000. Montiel has received numerous awards for her work including various grants from the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (Fondo nacional para la cultura y las artes FONCA), including that of the Jóvenes Creadores in 2001, and others such as the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2019 awarded by the Cite de l’architecture & du patrimoine and the Emerging Voices award (2016) by the Architectural League of New York.

Apart from her work with ESTUDIO DE ARQUITECTURA, Montiel is also on the editorial board of the Mexican architectural publication Arquine and she is currently a visiting critic in the architecture department at the Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. Montiel has also taught at various universities in Mexico City and at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Void Temple (2008-2011)
The Void Temple is one of 9 sites commissioned by the Mexican Ministry of Tourism on the Ruta del Peregrino—a pilgrimage over 73 miles in length that crosses the state of Jalisco that 2 million Mexicans traverse during holy week. Before the Mexican Ministry of Tourism commissioned the construction of these sites, the pilgrimage was dangerous and pilgrims lacked proper access to things like water and shelter. Sites like the Void Temple were constructed to provide both water and shelter but also to create beautiful vistas and new religious sites along the pilgrimage that were meant to harmonize with the environment and to create new site-specific experiences. In an interview with Architect Magazine, Montiel describes this project as her first significant commission, and goes on to describe the project in detail as:"'...a landscape intervention that touches all the themes that concern me as an architectural designer: public space, social fabric, re-signification of simple materials, re-signification of tradition. This land art piece sits amid pine woods and blends with the site topography; it consists of a white concrete wall forming a 40-meter (131-foot) circle that serves as a haven containing the macro-cosmos within the micro-cosmos.'"The Temple is the last site before the pilgrimage ends at the Talpa de Allende, and it is located in the middle of a coniferous forest.

Común-Unidad or Common-Unity (2014-2015)
Common Unity was a project completed in 2015 that was created to revitalize the public space of the San Pablo Xalpa housing unit in Azcapotzalco in Mexico City. This area had been previously filled with temporary structures and barriers that residents had put up that resulted in underutilized public space lacking free use and movement. Montiel and her firm's goal for the project was to work with the community and the barriers they had created to help "re-signify them" to create more unity in the neighborhood. Montiel preserved the residents' use of the space for recreation and coexistence, and added a roof to the space along with module facades equipped for blackboards, a climbing wall, hand rails, and nets, and a multipurpose room that serves as children's library. The community contributed significantly to this redesign and ultimately requested the removal of certain fences and barriers, showing how their perception of the space had changed to account for its new emphasis on community life. Montiel describes the design strategy for this project as "[substituting] dividing vertical structure, for sheltering horizontal ones."

Cancha or Court (2015-2016)
In 2015 Montiel and her firm were commissioned to create a roof over a basketball court to protect it from the elements in Lago de Puente, a suburban townhouse complex close to the Port of Veracruz. However, Montiel, after realizing the lack of urban amenities and public spaces in the area, proposed the creation of an entire community center. Her design, inspired by the Greek agora, sought to "make the outdoors inhabitable" while providing a number of possible uses. A Dezeen article covering the Court describes it as such:"'The sheltered area is a double-height space that runs from north to south. In its centre is a multi-purpose sports field, while the east and west sides contain enclosed spaces such as recreational areas for children, activity rooms, and bathrooms.'"The top level described above allows for onlookers to view the various activities that could be happening on the lower level court. The building is made of durable materials like steel and brick due to its location near the waterfront, while also utilizing patterned concrete blocks that create geometric shadows and allow for air to flow through the court.

Casa Ocuilan or Ocuilan House (2017-2018)
After the September 19th earthquake hit Mexico in 2017, Montiel knew that her studio had to work in some capacity to help the over 200,000 families that had displaced by the earthquake. In an interview with Arquine, Montiel describes the act of helping with reconstruction as fundamental to the job of an architect. Also citing her studio's emphasis for working on social projects, Montiel decided she would waive her fee to design a small house for a family in Ocuilan that had been affected by the earthquake. Rozana met with the family to discuss their need and quickly got to work on the house. An article for Dezeen covering the house, noted the need for the house to be built "quickly and effectively" citing the quote:"The plight of destruction made us work really fast,' the studio said in a project description. 'Catastrophes are so demanding that their time frames offer an opportunity to work intuitively and efficiently."

With a space of about 50 square meters, the house, constructed with Eco-Block and wood, includes a loft, one bedroom and one bathroom, a comunal space, and kitchen area separate from the house. Montiel used a housing vernacular specific to the region of Ocuilan while also adding modern twists. Her studio also views this construction as a model that could be adopted to other circumstances to "... create a new conscious that beauty is a basic right."

Research
An important aspect of Rozana Montiel's career has been research into architecture, the urban form, and social science. Listed below are various research projects and findings from the architect and designer.

City out of line: Laberinto, Cinta Coyoacán, Línea de Cal
In this project, now published in Urban Living Lab, Montiel describes the construction and configuration of the city as beginning with an act of "de-lineation," saying how modern city planning practices rely on a strategic design which outlines and demarcates the networks and services that pertain to the development of communities within the city. In this exercise, however, Montiel explores and documents the potential of a "line" as a tool for spacial design to rebuild, reconstruct, and reimagine perceptions of the urban space. Montiel describes and examines how the line (1)administers the imaginative possibilities of a space, making use of its temporalities, (2) shifts the border between public and private spaces to make use of underutilized urban spaces, and (3) configures the participation of communities in their processes of autogestion. Montiel describes the hypothesis this exercise proposes as the idea that the human, social, and cultural capital of a city are strengthened by the meaningful perceptions that that city's moving and temporary elements generate.

Chimalhuacán: Sustainability in Poor Areas
In this project, Rozana Montiel looks to the municipality of Chimalhuacán as a case study for how to implement concepts of sustainability in "urban poverty situations." Chimalhuacán is home to over 525,000 residents, the majority of which live in informal settlements as squatters. Recognizing the difficult conditions as a result of "a lack of services, functional public spaces, proper infrastructure, legal property ownership and employment," as well as citing the regions proneness to floods and "exposure to open-air sewage and waste disposal cites," Montiel's research focuses on two main strategies to implement a "new type of urbanism": theoretical and tactical site interventions. Montiel describes these strategies in detail on her studio's website, "The theoretical framework incorporates five main research topics: urban image, sustainability, poverty, informality and representation, each with their own distinct methods of inquiry and key concepts.

Meanwhile with the implementation of various tactical bottom-up interventions in the daily life of informal settlements we believe we can reconfigure urban space in order to arrive at sustainable processes. We have found that by implementing a variety of specific tactics we can give shape to the city space and find meaning in everyday life."

HU: Common Spaces in Housing Units
HU:Common Spaces in Housing Units is a book published by Rozana Montiel and her studio that compiles the research conducted in three social housing projects—“Common-Unity” in Mexico City, “Court” in Veracruz, and “Fresnillo Playground” in Zacatecas. This work, published at the 2018 “Freespace” Venice Biennial, Montiel describes as "[advancing] a new design methodology," and making use of post-it graphics to portray her studio's observations and solutions for common spaces in their projects. Montiel describes this project as one of her favorites, because of the reflection involved in the design process and the emphasis on language and its role in construction.

Awards

 * Most Outstanding Architectural Designs, Mexico 2020
 * 2019 Global Award for Sustainable Architecture
 * 2018 Winner of the MCHAP “Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize” for emerging architecture, for the project Common Unity
 * 2017 Winner at the Archmarathon Awards de Miami, of the Overall Award and first place in the "Moving" Category
 * 2017 Winner of the Moira Gemmill for emerging architects
 * 2016 Nominated for the Schelling Architecture Prize
 * Silver Medal 2016 – XIV National Biennial of Mexican Architecture with the project “Common-Unity”
 * Emerging Voices Award 2016 – The Architectural League of New York