ATELIER ARS. Architecture studio founded in Zapopan, Mexico, in 2004 by Alejandro Guerrero and Andrea Soto, both are architects from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente [ITESO] in Guadalajara, Mexico.
As a result of a deep reflection around three main ideas that have become fundamental, the studio bases its work on the relationship of architecture with nature through the landscape, the intrinsic condition of architecture understood as a discipline through the role of history in contemporary practice, and the relationship of architecture with the human through rituals and myths.
Alejandro Guerrero and Andrea Soto are architects, both graduates of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO) in Guadalajara, Mexico. They have been working together since 2010. Alejandro Guerrero earned a Master’s degree in Architecture, Criticism and Design from the Barcelona School of Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 2006, and has taught architectural design for over 14 years at ITESO. Andrea Soto won the CEMEX Arquitecto Marcelo Zambrano Scholarship that funded her Master’s studies in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, graduating with a distinction from the American Society of Landscape Architects ASLA in 2017.
Together they have received the Emerging Voices award, granted by The Architectural League of New York and the Design Vanguard award from Architectural Record magazine, both awards in 2015. Their work has been nominated for the Mies Crown Hall America’s Prize, awarded by the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and has been a finalist in the Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism in Sao Paulo, Brazil. They have been professors at Harvard Graduate School of Design through the Latin GSD cycle, Boston Architectural College BAC, as well as UBC SALA, and UVA University. Some of their works were part of the Official Exhibition of the Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014, 2016 and 2018. They obtained the Silver Medal at the XV Mexican Architecture Biennial and were finalists for the Emerging Architects Award from Architectural Review magazine in 2018. Their work has been recognized and won 1st place at the III Latin American Biennial of Landscape Architecture. In 2019, within the framework of the Mantovarchitettura 2019 event, they participated as professors and their work was presented at the international exhibition “Designing Mexico” of the Polytechnic of Milan, Polo Territorial di Mantova, in collaboration with CASABELLA.
Over the course of many years, they have developed academic activities that promote the exchange of architectural culture through courses and seminars on topics of theory and history with universities and NGOs such as ForA and CCAU, as well as participation in Harvard GSD and UVA Virginia as guest critics. As a result of this academic work, in 2020 the book Arquitecturas del Fuego I y II was written by Alejandro Guerrero, a theoretical framework that reflects our office's interest in topics of history, architecture and landscape.
