An author architect is not defined by the size of projects they take. The definition is about consistency of spatial logic and material thinking across scales, typologies, and geographies. In MÉTODO, we work on a 90-square-meter interior and a 600-square-meter authored residence with the same set of tools: section analysis, climatic response, material selection based on how things age.
What "Author" Means in Practice
The term author architect describes a practice where the design decisions — spatial organization, material palette, section logic, relationship between inside and outside — are developed from first principles specific to each project, rather than adapted from a house style or repeated formula.
An authored house in Nayarit and an authored house in the mountains of Colorado are not the same house. The section responds to different solar angles. The material palette draws from different regional sources. The threshold between interior and exterior solves different climatic problems. But both are authored in the same sense: the thinking that produced them is traceable, specific, and consistent in its logic.
This is what we mean by the process before the style. The design process — the section analysis, the solar study, the material hypothesis — is the author's signature. The style is a consequence, not a cause.
Small Scale: Where Precision Is Unavoidable
A small project offers nowhere to hide. In a 90-square-meter interior, every material joint is visible, every ceiling height is experienced at close range, and every threshold between spaces is felt. Small-scale work demands a level of detail precision that large-scale projects rarely impose, because in a large house the error averages out across area.
We treat interiorismo as a full architectural problem, not a decorating task. That means section drawings that define ceiling profiles and their relationship to light sources. Material schedules that specify the exact finish of each concrete surface and the profile of each millwork edge. Construction details that resolve how stone meets wood meets concrete at the joints the occupant will see every day.
Stone, wood, and concrete age with dignity when they are detailed correctly. They develop surface character over time. That is the opposite of materials that simulate a finish — which look freshest on day one and degrade from there.
Large Scale: Where the Section Carries the Work
In a large residential project, the section is the primary organizational tool. The section as narrative — how the building is cut to reveal its spatial logic — determines how a house mediates between its site and its occupants. How daylight enters and moves through the day. How the house meets the ground. How threshold between public and private spaces is defined.
At larger scales, the patio as organizer often becomes central: a void that structures the house around it, distributes natural ventilation, and provides acoustic separation between program areas. In Mexican residential projects especially, the interior patio is one of the most powerful spatial tools available — it is climatically rational and spatially generous.
A large-scale project also requires more coordination: structural engineering, MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) systems, civil engineering for site work. In MÉTODO, all of these consultants are coordinated through the design process matrix. Their work is integrated into the design documentation rather than appended to it.
Why Four Projects Per Year
Working at high quality across multiple scales requires direct principal attention. Four projects per year is the maximum that allows Bernardo to be present at every phase transition — every schematic review, every design development sign-off, every construction administration site visit — without delegating design authority to a production team.
That constraint is also what makes the practice legible as authored. When a studio produces 30 projects per year, the work is inevitably distributed across many hands. The consistency that defines authored architecture becomes difficult to maintain. The four-project limit is a design decision about the practice itself.
Next Steps
If the project you are considering — at any scale — involves a specific spatial problem and a commitment to material quality, the right next step is a direct conversation about whether it is the right fit.
Conoce el método de MÉTODO — how MÉTODO approaches design from the first conversation through construction at every scale.