Against all odds, a boutique, modern Mexico City housing complex has been born out of the transformation of a 19th-century home into four apartments by architecture studio Pedro y Juana. The new design successfully negotiated community demands and its complex inner city context, balancing heritage preservation with the city’s need for new housing and densification. Yet it was also uncompromising in terms of local architects Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo and Mecky Reuss’ vision for a generous, liveable and locally authentic architecture.
Mexico city housing T42 by Pedro y Juana
The pair discovered the once-abandoned house for sale on a walk through their own neighbourhood of La Colonia Juarez, an increasingly gentrified community of car mechanics and digital nomads. After recruiting investors, they bought the property and took on the ambitious role as novice developers and dynamic architects of its new future, keen to better understand the political dynamics of their locale. It’s safe to say they became initiated – collaborating over eight years with indigenous activists hosting organised squatters to their left, a newly protected heritage house to the right, as well as city bureaucracy.
Beyond and above its façade, the house opens up into a totally contemporary five-storey apartment building set around a traditional courtyard plan. Large square windows bring dual-aspect light and ventilation into every apartment. Each one also has a unique outdoor space, contributing to urban wellbeing.
'The city should have a memory, but there is also a future of architecture and creativity in Mexico City and that is a conversation that needs to be had – the city can’t be frozen in time,' says Galindo.
Suggesting a direction to this creative vision, the architects took an experimental approach to Mexican craft using cheap, readily available local materials. A volcanic rock aggregate clads the rear exterior, giving it a velvety, brutalist nature inspired partly by Mexico City’s Tamayo Museum. Custom teardrop-shaped clay tiles and traditional rectangular bricks clad the new volumes and terraces, while green-glazed Talavera tiles and exquisite board-marked concrete window ledges bring texture and depth to the minimal open-plan interiors.
-
Curtains up, Kid Harpoon rethinks the sound of Broadway production ‘Art’He’s crafted hits with Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus; now songwriter and producer Kid Harpoon (aka Tom Hull) tells us about composing the music for the new, all-star Broadway revival of Yasmina Reza’s play ‘Art’
-
Out of office: the Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the weekHere in the UK, summer seems to be fading fast. Moody skies and showers called for early-autumn rituals for the Wallpaper* team: retreating into the depths of the Tate Modern, slipping into shadowy cocktail bars, and curling up with a good book
-
To celebrate 50 years in business, Giorgio Armani is opening up his extraordinary archive to everybodyLaunched at the Venice Film Festival, Armani/Archivio is a digital archive charting 50 years of Giorgio Armani through the house’s most memorable designs
-
The Architecture Edit: Wallpaper’s houses of the monthWallpaper* has spotlighted an array of remarkable architecture in the past month – from a pink desert home to structures that appears to float above the ground. These are the houses and buildings that most captured our attention in August 2025
-
Estudio Ome on how the goal of its landscapes ‘is to provoke, even through a subtle detail, an experience’The Mexico City-based practice explores landscape architecture in Mexico, France and beyond, seeking to unite ‘art and ecology’
-
Pretty in cactus-inspired pink, this Mexican desert house responds to its arid contextCasa Cardona, a pink house by architects Sensacional Dinamica Mexicana, is a multigenerational home that celebrates colour and changing light
-
As climate disasters increase, can architecture respond? Kon-tigo, a post-hurricane Acapulco house design, shows us howKon-tigo is a housing project by Manuel Cervantes Estudio, which creates bioclimatic homes that address climate disasters and inequalities in Acapulco, Mexico
-
An eco-friendly Mexican ranch offers sleep under a beautifully crafted brick vaultArchitects Goma have built a Mexican ranch with a stunning red-brick guest pavilion; Rancho El Ameyal is a lush eco-retreat in the central Mexican state of Querétaro
-
In Quintana Roo, a park mesmerises with its geometric pavilionA Mexican events venue in the state of Quintana Roo rings the changes with a year-round pavilion that fosters a strong connection between its users and nature
-
Casa La Paz is a private retreat in Baja California full of texture and theatricsLudwig Godefroy designed Casa La Paz in Baja California, Mexico to create deep connections between the home and its surroundings
-
Pedro y Juana's take on architecture: 'We want to level the playing field’Mexico City-based architects Pedro y Juana bring their transdisciplinary, participatory approach to the Mexico pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025; find out more
