In this interview with Louisiana Channel, Mexican architect Gabriela Carrillo introduces us to the challenges that drive her work, particularly the projects carried out as a member of Colectivo C733, in which she currently participates alongside Carlos Facio, José Amozurrutia, Eric Valdez, and Israel Espin. Through an exploration of her definition of architecture, she offers reflections on the design of public spaces, the relationship between architecture and land art, and the role of the preexisting in the transformation of space. She defends architecture as a “powerful tool” for fostering connections between people and their environment, defining her practice as optimistic.
Gabriela Carrillo’s work has been widely and internationally awarded, published, and exhibited. Initially working alongside Mauricio Rocha and, since 2019, leading her eponymous studio, Taller Gabriela Carrillo, she has developed a multi-scalar practice in which the concept of spatial dignity and a particular attention to social and natural contexts resonate. She shares her vision of design through her academic role at the Faculty of Architecture at UNAM, as well as other institutions worldwide (including Harvard GSD, Kent State University, and the WAVE program in Venice). A trajectory consistent with the vision she states at the beginning of the interview, where she affirms that “everything and all the people that we knew somehow changed us.”
She refers to her interest in designing public projects and collective spaces as a willingness to engage in critical contexts: “What happened later is that I placed myself, maybe by decision, in conditions of crisis.” She frames these projects within a more strategic aspect of architectural practice, one that is challenging both in terms of decision-making for designers and in fostering connections with the surrounding context and actors. It is this capacity to navigate such dialogues that earned Colectivo C733 the OBEL Award 2024, in recognition of the collaborative approach demonstrated in a series of 36 multi-sector urban regeneration projects across Mexico. Regarding her participation in the collective and this type of project, she states:
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I think when you’re working in a public space, you need to let go a lot. You need to find out that the work you’re doing is not yours, that you’re creating a canvas. And that canvas is going to be transformed by the people that it’s going to inhabit.
Likewise, Gabriela Carrillo’s interest in design is driven by the way architecture mediates human interactions and how the transformation of space can provoke or reshape them. A similar approach is applied to the relationship between people and their environment, exemplified by her description of the Eco Parque Bacalar project in Mexico. The project consists of a pathway designed for observing the mangroves and stars in Laguna Bacalar, a freshwater bacterial reef of great ecological and cultural significance. Regarding this intervention, the architect emphasizes the project’s value as a site for appreciation and education:
So we thought that this path would have the story of the lagoon, which has 10,000 years ahead of us, and was the opportunity to showcase and tell the story of this lagoon to the people. So that’s why it had four faces. It is not a dead end. It is a cycle. It is perfectly oriented to the north, so it creates attention with the shadow because of the light and moves depending so the mangrove can move below. So for me, the architecture is not only the geometrical piece that we’re building but everything organic that has happened below.
In addition to these subjects, the interview also touches on the intersection of architecture and art, referencing the work of Olafur Eliasson, Damián Ortega, and Gabriel Orozco. Carrillo reflects on the sculptural value of architecture in controlling mass and the sensitive elements surrounding it, including wind, light, and geometry itself. The interview offers a brief insight into her work, which can be further explored in the documentary Women in Architecture, where she appears alongside Toshiko Mori and Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge, or through an in-depth look at the architectural system that defines Colectivo C733’s work.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on February 11, 2025.