ATELIER ARS

ATELIER ARS is the architecture studio led by Alejandro Guerrero and Andrea Soto based in Guadalajara México.

Our proposals are the result of a deep reflection regarding three main ideas that have become fundamental in our practice:
The relationship of architecture with nature through landscape; the intrinsic condition of architecture understood as a discipline, through the role of history in the contemporary practice; and the relationship of architecture with the human through rituals and myths. The dialectic between architecture and landscape has been a key subject in our work, as we have been interested for a long time in the possibility of blurring those disciplinary limits, to find new ways of expression for our practice. Instead of understanding architecture and landscape as two different professional activities, we have tried to research the possibilities of crossing information that can lead to a better understanding of the creation of human habitats.

Alejandro Guerrero graduated from ITESO University in 2000 and studied the master Architecture, Criticism and Project at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia from 2005 to 2006. He has been architectural design profesor from 2006 to 2020 at his alma mater and other institutions. He was named as Academic by the National Academy of Architecture in México in 2019. He has been lecturer and critic at Quito Architecture Biennale in 2022. Andrea Soto graduated from ITESO University in 2011 and won the CEMEX Architect Marcelo Zambrano Scholarship which made possible her studies in the Master in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), graduating with distinction in 2017 and with a special recognition by the American Society of Landscape Architects ASLA. She has been part of the Cemex Prize jury, and the Quito Architecture Biennale in 2022. ATELIER ARS is the architecture studio led by Alejandro Guerrero and Andrea Soto based in Guadalajara Mexico. Together, they have received the Emerging Voices award, given by The Architectural League of New York and the Design Vanguard from the Architectural Record, both awards in the year 2015. Their work has been a finalist in the IberoAmerican Architecture and Urbanism Biennial in Sao Paulo, Brasil. Their work was part of the Official Exhibition of Mexico’s Pavilion at the Architecture Venice Biennial in 2014, 2016 and 2018. They obtained a Silver Medal in the XV Mexican Architecture Biennial and 1st prized at the III Latin American Biennial of Landscape Architecture. They were finalists in the Emerging Architects prize from the Architectural Review magazine in 2018. In 2019 as part of the event Mantova architettura they participated as lecturers and their work was presented in the international exhibition “Diseñando México” of the Milan Polytechnic, Polo Territorial di Mantova, in collaboration with CASABELLA. Their projects have been published in Architectural Record, Architectural Review, Detail, Arquine and CASABELLA.

They have been lecturers at the Graduate School of Design of Harvard through the Latin GSD cycle, as well as UBC SALA (British Columbia), UVA (University of Virginia), and The Dallas Architecture Forum, as well as participation at Harvard GSD and UVA as guest critics and Studio Visiting Professors in Fall 2024. The Center for Culture and Arts of the Lakeside (CCAR) was awarded Silver Medal in the Erich Mendelshon Award 2023 in Berlin, Germany. Their work was nominated for the Mies Crown Hall America’s Prize (MCHAP. emerge) in 2016 and two projects have been nominated for the MCHAP 2024.They have developed over many years, academic activities that promote the exchange of architectural culture through seminars on topics of theory and history with Universities and NGOs such as ForA and CCAU. As a result of such academic work, the book Arquitecturas del Fuego I y II was written by Alejandro Guerrero in 2020, a theoretical framework that accounts for the interest of their office regarding history, architecture and landscape issues.