Macias Peredo Studio is an architecture firm based in Mexico, founded in 2012 by founding architects Macias Corona and Magui Peredo Arenas. The studio focuses on design and construction, embracing the idea of critical localism in which artisans are part of the architectural process. The firm has designed residential, commercial and institutional projects in Mexico, combining local and global features to create a timeless building that combines local modernity with hand-crafted materials.

In the Master Class, the co-founders Salvador Macías and Magui Peredo analyze their design under the theme of A Practice. They start the class by analyzing Mexico’s courtyards and perceiving inspiringly the square elements in Luis Barragan’s works. Then, they introduce the native Mexico environment and how to extract from the site useful elements to do the conception. Salvador Macías and Magui Peredo also talk about enriching the design with the help of paste-up and the free intention and strategically view in design. At last, they conclude what a successful architecture should be: it is a sustainable space and it is a balance among technology, poetry and Philosophy.   

Yinjispace：How do you think about giving the architecture spiritual freedom and using freedom?

Macías Peredo Studio：I think this is a good question, and easier to practise that it looks like. The answer is imagining we live in the building. That is to say, we are not designing an art, but a residential space for people. We three are collectors of experiences and practices. This is a slow course going along with the architecture. We not just think of the environment when we design. But it’s a system that is made of elements we want and collect.

What I would like to add is, free is getting a structure supporting varied things that we want to put into the building, which turns it into a existence of free, geometry and structure, but more like a more complex organism. I was a teacher for 9 years. And I told my students the architectural magic is like a mathematical formula. The chance equals to the opportunity. As architects, we take the responsibility of seeing these chances. The architecture is surrounded by economic, social culture, physics and environments. Once you get rid of these, and regard them as opportunities. Here comes the freedom.

Yinjispace：What is the connection between paintings and Mexico space?

Macías Peredo Studio：I think we may believe we know our daily space, after all, it is so familiar to us so we ignore too much things while foreigners’ eyes could catch them. We have always been interested in foreigners not because we pay less attention to our native land but they could know what are special of our country. Then we find out who we are, what we could take advantage of and what tools we possess. When I saw this painting it surprises me：I had an intuition that some elements in it is vital to me.

Later I knew a architectural proportion hidden in it and I bear it in my mind. After I visited all those places and pictures, I was reminded of the painting and I find their scale are the same. One of my friend told me that you have seen all these same-scale and related architectures and places. As you seeing the painting, you see things others can’t, which is the proportion of architecture.

Yinjispace：Is there any rules of your window in the architecture facades?

Macías Peredo Studio：The first thing is we believe that architecture should protect us from the outside things. We avoid to apply special glass or other technologies to solve the relation with the outside space and change the temperature. Making a window on the wall is easier for the ventilation and decreasing sunshine heat. You have to do researches on relationship with the outside and take the inside into consideration simultaneously. 

As we shown in the school we designed, the windows have shape of triangle, the stablest geometrical form. After we determine the shape, the constructors place them as that way. They are easy to build and take up a short period of time. And also sole technology doesn’t work. A good idea could come from technology, yet the latter could not stand itself.

Yinjispace：How do you gain inspiration and turn it into real space?

Macías Peredo Studio：This is easy, the architecture doesn’t belong to us. We do not have a stable architectural language that could be used in every projects, which should turn into a restriction. The architecture doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to the place and the site. And we would let them speak their information or we could perceive them to see what we could do about it. So, more often, we say that architecture is local. It is an excuse, by which we learn diversity of people and places around the world. In other words, it’s important to give things continuity than establish the so-called your own architectural language.

Yinjispace：Could you describe your working process? How do you balance and interveve it as an architect?

Macías Peredo Studio：There is an old saying: you learn scientific trough rules, and art through examples; technology through construction, and ideas through travel, thinking, talk and reading. We often discuss with each other in the studio about everything, a book, a picture, a poetry or a painting. Because the idea comes from technology, your meditation, and the world you create. Specifically, I may refer two points. 

Definition like tradition seems out-dated somehow. But it refers to a place that you have to accept if you want the sense of belonging. It is the game rule that we perceive and put aside, then we participate in the game without thinking about the rules any longer. To know it, we give it continuity, and we belong to the most local architectures. These spaces tell us wisdom of the one place: their elements, materials, technologies, the characters of space, and how they are been used.