The process before the style. That phrase is not a marketing position — it is a description of how MÉTODO structures every residential project. It has consequences for how the design looks, how long it takes, and what the client actually ends up with.
What "Process Before Style" Actually Means
Most architectural conversations begin with images. A client shows a folder of references — things they like from Instagram, magazines, or projects they have visited. The architect uses those references to understand taste and then produces a design that resembles them.
In MÉTODO, we use references differently. We use them to understand which values matter to the client — privacy, materiality, openness to landscape, acoustic comfort — and then we set them aside. The design does not inherit the style of the references. It inherits the values they represent.
The actual design emerges from a different set of inputs: the solar orientation of the site, the prevailing wind pattern, the structural logic of the program, the thermal behavior of the materials, and the budget framework. These inputs are not aesthetic — they are physical. But they produce architecture with a character more specific and durable than any style choice could.
Why Style-First Architecture Dates
A home designed around a style trend — industrial, Japandi, earthy minimalism — is designed with a shelf life. The style was the most compelling available at the time of design. In five years, the same finishes appear in mass-market hotels. In ten, they appear in rental properties. The home that was designed around that style reads as dated in a way that a structurally and climatically coherent home never does.
Stone, timber, and concrete placed in response to solar orientation do not age the same way as a curated aesthetic. They age with the site and the occupants. The patina that develops on a concrete floor from fifteen years of daily use is not decay — it is the intended end state of an honest material.
The Process MÉTODO Uses Before a Line Is Drawn
The analytical phase in MÉTODO takes two to four weeks and produces a brief — not a design, a brief. The brief contains:
- Site analysis: solar angles, prevailing winds, views, access, neighboring structures.
- Climate response: thermal strategy, natural ventilation potential, mass requirements.
- Program evaluation: the client's stated needs tested against the site and budget constraints.
- Budget framework: a realistic range for the project scope, presented before design investment begins.
Only when the brief is complete does design begin. The brief does not constrain the design — it focuses it. The architect knows exactly what the design needs to solve before making the first spatial move.
This is the matrix of options applied at the front end of the project: understanding the parameters before committing to a direction.
What the Design Phase Looks Like
When design begins with a clear brief, the first options produced are not exploratory sketches — they are tested proposals. MÉTODO typically presents two or three schemes at the first design review, each developed to the same level: plan, section, perspective, and a material logic. Each scheme resolves the brief differently, with different trade-offs made explicit.
The section as narrative matters here: the section of a scheme reveals its structural logic, its ceiling height relationships, and its thermal strategy simultaneously. A scheme that reads well in plan but poorly in section is not a resolved proposal.
The client selects between schemes with understanding of the trade-offs, not on the basis of which rendering looks most appealing. Deciding by comparing, not by guessing.
What This Produces in the Long Run
A home designed by process rather than style tends to surprise its owners twenty years after completion. The spatial relationships remain correct. The light at 4 PM in autumn still reaches the same corner of the study that it did on move-in day. The concrete floor has acquired a depth it did not have when new. The timber ceiling has darkened to a color that the specification sheet could not have predicted.
These outcomes are not accidental. They are the result of a process that understood the physics of the site before it committed to any form.
Próximos Pasos
If you are starting a residential project in Mexico City or Colorado and find that the process matters as much as the result, the conversation begins with the site — not with references.
Conoce el método de MÉTODO to understand how the analytical phase shapes every design decision that follows.