MÉTODO is a Mexico City architectural studio that takes four residential projects per year. That limit is not capacity management — it is the definition of what authored architecture requires. Every project receives a design intelligence that stays with it from the first site visit to the last material inspection. The shadow before the light.
What an Author-Driven Studio Does Differently
In a conventional firm, a project passes through stages with different people: a principal defines the concept, associates develop the design, junior staff produce the drawings, a site architect administers construction. At each hand-off, something is lost — or something is simplified into the vocabulary of the next person downstream.
In an author-driven studio, the design intelligence that performed the site analysis is the same one that resolves the detail of the window head. The concept and the detail are the same act performed at different scales. That continuity is what produces a house that is coherent from the section to the material.
In MÉTODO, this continuity is structural. It is the reason we take four projects per year rather than forty.
Residential Design in Mexico City's Urban Context
CDMX residential design operates within specific urban constraints. Most sites are narrow and deep — the legacy of colonial-era lot dimensions. They share walls with adjacent buildings and receive light primarily through the interior courtyard or through the rear of the lot.
The patio as organizer is the foundational spatial move in Mexico City residential architecture. The patio is not an amenity — it is the structural center of the house. It is where cross-ventilation occurs, where light enters the interior, where the family's daily circulation is organized. A house in CDMX that treats the patio as a garden rather than as a spatial organizer misses the fundamental logic of the urban type.
Asoleamiento matters in this context. The patio's orientation determines which rooms receive morning light, which receive afternoon light, and which are in shadow all day. That analysis precedes any spatial concept.
Material Strategy for Mexico City Residential Work
Stone, wood, and concrete perform differently in CDMX's climate than they do in dry or cold contexts. At 2,240 meters elevation, the city has temperate temperatures year-round — minimal heating and cooling loads — but intense solar radiation and occasional heavy rainfall.
Stone in CDMX is a natural choice: it is quarried locally, it reads climatically appropriate, and it handles the seasonal temperature shifts without stress. Cantera volcanic stone — a characteristic material of central Mexican architecture — weathers to a patina that connects a new building to the urban fabric around it.
Concrete in CDMX residential work serves as both structure and surface. The city's seismic zone requires reinforced concrete construction in any case; the question is whether to expose it or to cover it. In MÉTODO's projects, we specify and expose the concrete where the structural logic supports it — using the structural necessity as an architectural asset rather than hiding it behind plaster.
The Scale Question: Why Four Projects
A residential client in CDMX is making the most significant spatial commitment of their life. The house will be the context for family life for decades. The decisions made in design — orientation, section, spatial sequence, material selection — will be present every day.
That investment deserves an architect who can give it genuine attention. The limit of four projects per year is not false scarcity — it is the acknowledgment that a project done with insufficient attention is not done. The analysis is incomplete. The detail is compromised. The house is not what it could have been.
We have found that clients who understand this limit tend to be the right clients for this kind of work.
Próximos pasos
An authored residential project in Mexico City begins with a site visit and a solar study — not with a portfolio review. The site is the first material of the design.
Conoce el método de MÉTODO — how we approach residential work in Mexico City and beyond.