T38 studio

As a practice that is based in a city that does not follow conventional rules, a metropolis on the edge, we have evolved via a different architectural operating model. Our office is a workshop, because its not mainly composed by architects, its made up by craftsmen, carpenters, painters, welders and architects.
The city itself is our studio, and our main focus has been building well designed housing in a city where half of the housing units were self built in illegal settlements. Process as practice, practice as process. As Jaques Ranciere termed it, our "ways of doing and making" means process diverges from common architecture practices. Our aim is to create communities by finding sites, designing, building and developing our own projects.The close relationship between architect and the craftsmen has been of utmost importance in the way that our projects are built. We have the advantage of being able to work in a way through planned error, and our design methods of building have evolved by learning from our local craftsmen. "Difference and repetition," our architectural interpretation of this concept is how we have been experimenting with varying typologies, moving back and forth between past and future projects, continuously researching how the communities we have built function. Our academic work, having taught studios in Mexico, the United States and France that have focused on the city also inform our current practice. We have come to embrace Gabriel Orozco’s “post-studio” practice idea. The flexibility to be able to practice architecture from different cities has led us to set up temporary offices in Santiago de Chile, Los Angeles and currently in New York, while always keeping our main office in Tijuana, México.