It's time to bring new Mexican architecture to the table says Lanza Atelier

Today, Lanza Atelier was announced as the designer of this year's Serpentine Pavilion. In this exclusive interview, its founders explain how they are part of a new generation of Mexican architects that is placing experimentation at the fore.

Speaking to Dezeen from their studio in Mexico City, Lanza Atelier's founders Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo said that they feel part of an era of "new Mexican architecture".

"Mexico is at a great moment, architecturally speaking," Abascal told Dezeen. "We have this feeling that we are part of a [new] generation."

"It's time to test new stuff and bring new Mexican architecture to the table," added Arienzo. "I think that's very thrilling."

Serpentine commission "very overwhelming" surprise

Lanza Atelier, which was revealed today as the architect of the 25th annual Serpentine Pavilion, was established in Mexico City in 2015.

With the vast majority of the studio's permanent projects in Mexico, its founders were shocked to be asked to design the pavilion, describing waking up to an email from the Serpentine Gallery team with the invitation as a "very overwhelming" surprise.

However, they believe that it is their experimental nature – a trend the duo said is emerging in the Mexican capital – along with a diverse portfolio that landed them the commission.

"I think it's because we work with art a lot, because of the exhibition designs, we also teach, have done a bunch of pavilions, and we always conquer the project," reflected Arienzo.

"We try to put the same energy into everything [people] ask us for, like sometimes people say, 'you don't have time for making me a table, you should be so busy'," he added. "No no, we try to put the same energy into drawing a table as drawing a Serpentine Pavilion."

The studio's work spans pavilions and houses to exhibition and furniture designs, with a continual flurry of projects that means there is rarely a quiet day at the studio.

Examples include a house in Cancun, a pavilion in a Mexican City shopping centre and an art exhibition with demountable furniture in New York.

Lanza Atelier was founded when Abascal and Arienzo were asked to design a public bathroom that could be replicated along a seven-kilometre bike path in Mexico City.

The brief was limited, so the studio looked for opportunities to push its boundaries. In this case, it lobbied for all-gender bathrooms, "which, at the time, was something that was hard to pass through the government", Abascal said.

Every commission an opportunity to "push the boundaries"

This ambition to step beyond the threshold has gone on to define all of its projects that followed.

"Every commission, it's an opportunity to do something interesting, to experiment, to push the boundaries of what architecture means," explained Abascal.

According to Arienzo, a thread that unifies the studio's eclectic portfolio is its design process, which always begins with developing concepts and carrying out intense research.

"We put a lot of attention to the conceptual process, we test a lot of stuff at the beginning, and that's very time-consuming," said Arienzo.

"We also take every project as an opportunity to actually do research and learn about the context," added Abascal.

"We're actually like a workshop," she continued. "We were never sure of what's going to come out and that's part of the beauty of doing architecture, that you're going in a certain way, but you are surprised by where architecture takes you every time."

Serpentine Pavilion design highlights "vernacular construction wisdom"

Lanza Atelier's design for this year's Serpentine Pavilion is modelled on a crinkle-crankle wall – an undulating one-brick-wide structure found in England, otherwise known as a serpentine due to its snake-like form. They originated in ancient Egypt and were introduced to England by Dutch engineers.

Like a traditional crinkle-crankle wall structure, the Serpentine Pavilion will be constructed from brick to evoke traditional English gardens and also the facade of the Serpentine South Gallery.

However, it also recognises how these curvilinear forms are designed for stability, meaning they require fewer bricks than a straight wall.

"We are trying to somehow highlight vernacular construction wisdom," said Abascal. "We love the serpentine wall, of course, because it's onomastic, it's very immediate and rewarding."

"By highlighting it, we are somehow referring to the necessity of actually being preoccupied at a global scale with how we employ our resources," she added.

Utilising a single material in this way is common in Lanza Atelier's projects, with the studio aiming to test "how far that material can go".

"We try to focus on one material per project, so that we truly research how far that material can go and how it can be used, learn from how it's been used historically, but also try to rethink how it can possibly be used," said Abascal.

While nodding to local vernacular and resource efficiency, the design is also a reference to the nearby Serpentine lake, which is named after its serpent-like form.

Once complete, the pavilion will be divided into a habitable indoor space and an external gathering area framed by a bench in front of the Serpentine Gallery, which is located in London's Kensington Gardens.

Arienzo said this challenges the designs of previous Serpentine Pavilions, which have been designed as a single "centrepiece", often overlooking the context of the gallery's garden setting.

"We believe that most of the pavilions they have made, it's always like a centrepiece where you just enter and that's it, and the garden around is just like a residual space," Arienzo said.

"It was important to also put attention to the outside space," he said. "The other half of the pavilion is actually outside, so you can perform other activities outside."

"There's a very nice, vibrant energy"

At present, the studio is six-strong, but it regularly collaborates with emerging, external practitioners.

"The scale of the studio is important and we are very small right now," said Arienzo. "The studio itself becomes like a school studio where we can begin by talking ideas, we can actually develop them and test new stuff."

Abascal added that, while the studio celebrates the works of Mexican masters of architecture, its collaborations and experiments with fellow young architects have the most influence.

"We learn a lot from several deceased masters and then another generation of masters that are still alive and practising, and we try to learn the best from each of them," explained Abascal.

"But we are aware that we are part of a certain generation of architects, we have collaborated with some at some points, that feels very beautifully collaborative," she continued.

"There's a very nice, vibrant energy, but also there's a lot of solidarity and there's a lot of exchange."

Abascal and Arienzo attribute this collaborative design approach to their international backgrounds, with Abascal being from Spain and Arienzo being Mexican, but also to being based in the Mexican capital.

"In Mexico City, the [architecture] scene is much more international," said Arienzo.

"Mexico City tests more conceptual stuff and is definitely much more into contemporary architecture, the references you can see are much more from abroad," he explained.

"The important part was to make good architecture"

When asked about the origins of their studio's name, Abascal and Arienzo both laughed shyly and suggested it was made in a hurry when formally establishing the studio in 2015.

"It was just very naive, the important part was to make good architecture rather than have a good name," reflected Arienzo.

"We didn't want to have names in it, I think that takes out a little bit of ego," he added. "The main thing that I do remember about the name is that [in Spanish] it's a noun and an action, a verb."

"Architecture doesn't work by itself. You need people, you need activity, you need programming, you need life," Arienzo concluded.

Abascal went on to highlight that lanza "means to throw, as an athlete" in Spanish.

For her, she sees this as a metaphor for "flying towards somewhere, but you don't really know where" – a justification that arguably makes the name perfectly suited to this experimental studio.

The main image is by Pia Riverola.

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