Unveiling the Layers

A LECTURE BY LAURA GONZALEZ FIERRO AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY AAP NYC

October 29, 2024

This lecture explores the multifaceted nature of our practice, offering insight into the studio's environment and its role in analyzing and shaping the built environment. The studio acts as both a physical and conceptual space, where ideas are born, transformed, and refined. It examines how various elements—ranging from technical skills and material experimentation to theoretical reflection, research, and collaboration—interact and build upon one another. These components are integral not only to the creative process but also to the evolution of the practice over time. Through a discussion of key projects, we share how these layers work in tandem, influencing the trajectory of our practice and its response to the diverse challenges of contemporary design. The lecture illustrates how each aspect contributes to the final work, reflecting a dynamic, constantly evolving practice.

STREVER FARM LONGHOUSE

PRESENTED AT MADE EXPO MILAN 2023

November 15, 2023

Strever Farm Longhouse started as a personal project. The opportunity to design your own house is probably one of the most engrossing experiences as an architect. With a practice in New York but with working and living experiences in Mexico, France, Brazil and the US, I collected a series of different imaginaries that go beyond construction or architecture. ⁣
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The construction experimentation for this project came as a layering process of all those cities, countries, communities, means and methods, regulations, moments, and context —local and global.⁣
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What started with the research of the local typologies and history of the land ended up connecting with my childhood memories of monastic architecture. We aimed to create a new vernacular bridging past and present architectural languages.⁣
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Since the beginning we involved a local farmer to help us take care of these prime soils. He advised on some tilling to oxygenate the top layer and stressed we should collect the “arrowheads” that would appear in the process. There is a Moravian/Mohican Monument across the land, these lands were scenarios of daily life and battlefields for the Mohicans (People of the River) and their northern neighbors, the Iroquois (People of the Longhouse). The latter were structures from 600 years ago yet extremely modern in formal language.

PILARES CUAUHTEMOC IN MEXICO CITY FEATURED IN

UNBUILT ISSUE

November 1, 2023

Editor of UNBUILT issue, Luca Molinari wrote:

This issue of Platform is courageous because it compelled 40 studios from Italy and around the world to offer us not the completed and perfectly photographed works but the missed and unrealized works, asking each of them in a series of dialogues the meaning these lesser-known works have for their own journey. Because all of us should also cultivate our abstract, theoretical, playful, and experimental side in order to truly grow as designers and citizens of the world.

October 12, 2022

IG: @archleague

Current Work is a lecture series by the Architectural League of New York featuring leading figures in the worlds of architecture, urbanism, design, and art.

Mexico City’s PILARES (Puntos de Innovación, Libertad, Arte, Educación y Saberes, or Points of Innovation, Freedom, Art, Education, and Knowledge) projects are a series of over 250 (built and in-progress) public community centers. In this video, nine architecturally ambitious PILARES projects are presented by the following firms:

• a | 911

• AGENdA + TO

• Fernanda Canales Arquitectura

• FIERRO + Francisco Pardo Arquitecto

• IUA Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + WORKac

• Palma + PRODUCTORA

• Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura

• Taller Gabriela Carrillo

• TEN Arquitectos

The presentations are introduced by Carlos Zedillo Velasco, who served as the architectural coordinator of the PILARES initiative, working as a consultant to the Mexico City government.

The presentations are followed by a conversation and Q&A with Mexico City-born journalist and researcher Suleman Anaya.

INTERVIEW FOR ARCHIVO DE IDEAS RECIBIDAS

May 15, 2022

IG:@archivo_ideas

Archivo de Ideas Recibidas es un proyecto interdisciplinario de investigación y difusión que busca registrar y relacionar las ideas de personas que contribuyen al ecosistema creativo contemporáneo desde el arte, el diseño y la arquitectura.

El proyecto se construye desde las conversaciones que el equipo sostiene con diversos creadores, en donde se profundizan temas relacionados a la memoria, la academia, el contexto cultural, sus principales influencias y metodologías de trabajo. Estas conversaciones constituyen el punto de partida para entender a la persona detrás de los proyectos y las ideas que marcan su práctica profesional y creativa. -- La entrevista esta estructurada a partir de siete temas que funcionan como punto de partida para tocar distintos aspectos de la vida y obra del invitado.

Los temas son los siguientes:

1. Presentación

2. Origen

3. Mentores y Maestros / Influencias

4. Lugar memorable

5. Dia a día

6. Docencia / Academia

7. Procesos y aprendizajes

Laura González Fierro is an architect and curator based in New York City. She was co-curator of the exhibition Walls of Air and co-editor of the homonymous book for The Brazilian Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, a research project that reflects on the borders of architecture in relation to other disciplines like geography, medicine, anthropology, social sciences, arts, law and politics. The project has been presented in New York, Rome, Beirut, and Lima to paint a vivid image of some of the most urgent topics for discussion in contemporary culture. She is currently co-curator of In Situ: Conversations on Architecture and Beyond at the Americas Society, a platform that explores contemporary architectural models and discourses from the Americas prompting a dialogue between the discipline and the world at large. She is a graduate of the Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México (2002) and holds a master’s in advanced architectural design from Columbia University GSAPP in New York City (2008). In 2010, she founded FIERRO (formerly +ADD), a human centric architecture and design studio with projects in New York, Miami, Mexico City and São Paulo in the fields of architecture, urban planning, design and curatorial work in multidisciplinary collaborations. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University GSAPP where she teaches a studio on Accessibility for the Advanced Architectural Design program. Her work has been published by Braun Publishing, LEAF Review, PIN-UP, -NESS, Architect’s Newspaper, Hyperallergic, Bauwelt, Arquine among many other. Laura González Fierro is a registered architect in the State of New York as well as Brazil and Mexico and serves on the Board of Directors of both URBEM in Brazil and Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City.

Archivo de Ideas Recibidas are: Asiel Nuñez, Carolina Rivera, Erick Bergelund, Mauricio Villagra, Milagros Rodríguez, Olenka Ruiz

Interview realized by: Asiel Nuñez | Date of Interview: 30.09.21 | Location of Interview: New York, USA | Edition: Asiel Nuñez | Animation: Olenka Ruiz

Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

14th annual Love in Times Square Design Competition

2022 Design Competition Finalists

January 18, 2022

Times Square Arts through Times Square Alliance invited five local studios to present a proposal for the 2022 Times Square Design Competition —this is our proposal:

I LOVE NEW YORK : a political bench —the single turned into the collective

The I LOVE NEW YORK bench is a reminder that together we can build strength or comfort, find beauty and warmth, ensure resilience and endurance, and ignite love and kindness. Times Square is a place of imaginary urban landscapes, a display of world stage products and productions, financial markets, entertainment, assembly, connection, and encounters. In the same way pixels create a digital image in the monumental screens of Times Square, we use a material pixel (concrete block) to build an image of Love —an Ode to New York City. From the digital to the analog we wanted to honor the physicality of the working class, the backbone of the city. Most of the time concrete blocks get covered by other materials and are seldom shown in their true nature. By exposing the block in its purest form and displaying the simplicity and beauty of its materiality we also enhance how resilient it can be — just like New Yorkers, who come together as individuals and create urban culture as a whole. Together like pixels we composed an image of a city that is majestic, powerful, resilient, public, accessible and relevant for the times we are living —making us remember how much we love our city. The I LOVE NEW YORK bench invites all the different voices in the city to leave a message of hope, kindness, care, reflection and love.

MEXICO CITY: THE NEW SANCTUARIES STORE OPENING

January 12, 2022

Founded by Mexican designer, pharmacist and alchemist Tatiana Torrealba, cosmetics brand The New Sanctuaries is the result of two decades of extensive exploration and experimentation. Taking ample cues from ancestral knowledge, clean beauty principles, transparency, nature and technology, it’s a brand that appeals to a like-minded and forward demographic of consumers. Taking its operations to the next level, Torrealba has opened a retail space at Laguna, a redeveloped, former thread and textile factory from the 1920s in the historic downtown Cuauhtémoc neighbourhood of Mexico City. Designed by architect Francisco Pardo and Studio Fierro Architecture, a practice based in New York City, the store occupies a 28 sqm. (301 sq.ft.) ground floor unit alongside an inner courtyard, and sees a setting that alludes to The New Sanctuaries‘ ongoing transformation and development. The chosen aesthetic is sophisticated, albeit rough around the edges and oozing a modern artisanal vibe, featuring two large marble volumes with polished tops which serve as basins, bare brick walls, sleek steel shelving – mind you, those lining the back wall are in fact storage and feature decorative little boxes – and cabinets that line the side walls. Additional furnishings comprise a display and table made from bricks and two monolithic marble displays. The newly opened The New Sanctuaries boutique carries the brand’s full range of Tri-Bhew creams, herbal infusion teas and an assorted range of other products.

LAURA GONZÁLEZ FIERRO becomes the vasconcelos library by alberto kalach

IN -ness volume 3

February 10, 2021

I am a vessel of continental scale. The weight of my knowledge is real, people can feel it in their shoulders; when they walk through my aisles, when they read my stories or when they stand on my grounds. I work against gravity —or at least I intend to do so— but my efforts are futile: my weight is felt in every second of my existence, in every breath of life that comes into me. It is quite appealing to visualize an entire collection in a glimpse, especially when you can feel the heft of every single word and comma in the room.

But perhaps it’s that weight that makes me real, relevant and alive; otherwise where would I go? Who would I embark on a seductive dialogue with? Who would dance with me? Who would tell me stories at night? Who would quell my fears and reassure me I will see another sunrise? Nobody will —but she* would… she is always there, as my mother, my partner, my lover, my sister, my friend, my everything. She, who dresses in a beautiful historical gown, weaved on pre-hispanic tones, colonial whisperings and modern desires. She lives far away and is always surrounded by attractive suitors; I get jealous sometimes, forgotten on this side of the city. Don’t get me wrong, I value my close friendships enormously. I cherish my brothers from Tlatelolco but they have their own issues to deal with and I feel we come from different moments in history. There is empathy between us nonetheless. I’ve certainly had some affairs. I always liked flirtatious situations —especially the long strolls around La Ciudadela when we discuss about the Popul Vuh or how we are trying to define our identities in a Labyrinth of Solitude— but nothing beats her experience; what she has seen, heard and hidden from humanity. 

Sometimes when it gets dark, I feel my roots growing, as if they want to extend until they touch her feet. But there are too many layers of infrastructure and history to ignore and avoid. If my content can evoke many lives why can’t I invent a romance that goes beyond my hanging bookshelves? I am an ark of knowledge; I have the most inventive stories within me and even so the more I know the lonelier I feel. From Conquest and Colonialism to Independence and Revolution I became a modern ruin. I want to advance in time but I am just floating in oblivion. 

Will I age as graciously as she did? It is uncertain, but my gardens will continue to grow and nature will eventually cover my bones, my skin. Maybe one day an anthropologist will discover me under the dense vegetation and reach the central nave, only to discover the whale skeleton suspended in time; they will know they have arrived at the forgotten Biblioteca Vasconcelos.

*The Central Library at UNAM Campus in CDMX.

IN SITU: Conversations on Architecture and Beyond

IN ARCHDAILY

MAY 10, 2020

Americas Society in New York City in collaboration with Center for Architecture (AIANY) launches a new architecture initiative: IN SITU_Conversations on Architecture and Beyond curated by Agustin Schang and Laura Gonzalez Fierro.

This new series of weekly Instagram posts invites architects and thinkers to contribute their spatial ideas and thoughts around the inside, the outside, and the in-between space(s). In a moment when a large amount of the world population is locked down, forced to negotiate between isolation, interiority, and connectivity in unprecedented ways–we urge to rethink: How are we navigating this crisis spatially? How are we shaping this new everyday experience across the Americas and the world at large? Where is the architecture discipline today, how is it transforming, and how is it going to help shape a better world for the future?

walls of air. a brazilian pavilion

IN -ness volume 2

July 28, 2019

The concept and title for the exhibition that represented Brazil at the 2018 Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, was conceived as a response to the theme of “Freespace” proposed by curators Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara in order to provoke questions about: 1. the different sorts of walls that construct, on multiple scales, the Brazilian territory; 2. the borders of architecture itself in relation to other disciplines. Therefore, a reflection began on how much Brazilian architecture and its urban developments are, in fact, free. Without the ambition of reaching an answer, but hoping to open the conversation to a large and diverse public, the curatorial team chose to shed light on processes that often go unnoticed due to their nature or scale. The immaterial barriers built between people or neighborhoods and the processes of urbanization in Brazil on a continental scale are examples of questions that were considered.

On the cover: The Encryption of Power: Disobedience and Exclusion in the City map for Walls of Air.

Mapping Boundaries and Free Space in Brazil

IN HYPERALLERGIC

JULY 26, 2019

Curator Laura González Fierro told Hyperallergic via email that the research conducted for Walls of Air might be much more difficult today, just a year after the Venice Biennale, due to limitations that Bolsonaro’s administration has placed on access to information. González Fierro said that while the curators were conducting research for Walls of Air, they were able to easily access public information for the project, but that “some of the data [the curators] used to create the maps has been given a confidentiality level that would make it impossible to have the cartographies today.” Due to the current administration’s hostility to government transparency, Walls of Air has become an instant-artifact from a more open Brazil, making it an even more vital project.

Latin America in Focus — Walls of Air and urbanization in Latin America

JULY 25, 2019

What's Keeping Urban Development in Brazil "from Being Free"?

Brazil is a vast country. But how open is it actually? To examine this question, four architects set out to show what is often hard to see, creating a series of ten oversized, interdisciplinary maps in the exhibition, Walls of Air: The Brazilian Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, on display now at Americas Society. In this episode, architects Laura González Fierro and MIT's Gabriel Kozlowski speak with AS/COA Online's Luisa Leme about the maps, which show how things like immigration, climate change, housing, and more are shaping architecture and urban development in Brazil today.