2g Essays

The award-winning Mexican architect analyzes two centuries of residential architecture, tracing the environmental impact of housing

Formerly the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale University, architect Fernanda Canales (born 1974), together with her studio, was named one of the world’s “100+ Best Architecture Firms” by Domus magazine, and was cited by the New York Times as one of 10 women changing the face of international leadership. Canales’ practice almost exclusively focuses on residential buildings. Her solutions address the environmental challenges of a given area or of a changing climate at large: whether rebuilding a family home damaged by an earthquake or designing a new house around the existing trees and vegetation. In this collection of essays published by 2G, Canales analyzes the evolution of the house by dismantling three critical assumptions: the house as a place of rest separate from work, the house as an object of private property and the house as a sanctuary for the nuclear family.