I always wanted to be involved with the arts, every type of art, and do a career where creativity was one of the fundamental things in it.
For most of my life I wasn’t interested with design, it was until college that I discovered that I wanted to get involved in it.
Valdez Arquitectos is a studio focused on being daring, creative and going against established ideals. We like our design to innovate and do projects that evoke emotions.
I love designing commercial or residential buildings, Im interested with the fact that cities keep growing, so the need for more buildings keeps getting higher while we search for the design that brings the best quality of life for the user.
My favorite design is one that we made for a funeral home, this is because we tried to detach the typical archetype of a funeral home, being cold and overwhelming to a more warm and positive environment where reflection is our main focus.
We don't really have one favorite material or piece of technology for our projects, we are always trying to incorporate what we feel is right for every unique project we are comissioned to do.
We always start analyzing different ways in which the building can function, then we move on with the experimentation of plasticity of the volume that contains the program, revealing then the final façades.
I’m usually nervous at the beginning when I don’t have yet a clear path the project is taking but once we get started and things start to look the way we want I get more confident that we are on the right path.
When a design is finished I'm always proud of the outcome, some projects take a lot of time to accomplish and sometimes it's hard to overcome the creative slumps that come and go.
I feed my imagination with every other facet of art that I can get access to, like when I look at a painting and I try to decipher the meaning behind it or by reading, thats an activity I enjoy a lot.
I live in the city of Puebla, in Mexico. A country known for its richness in culture and traditions, here you can find tons of color and solid materials, these which I try to incorporate into our projects.
I feel like the pros that come from living here is that the heritage of artists or architects like Luis Barragán leaves us with a richness of art in its many forms that influence our style as Mexicans. While the cons are that we are not so advanced technology-wise and some materials which are booming in the industry are harder to obtain here.
Have a good relationship with the designer, since making a design work involves a lot of going back and forth, so it can get a bit complicated during the process so having a good relationship and open communications is my best advice. For selecting a good designer, I think you should choose one that aligns with your values and challenges you to think outside the box.
My design process always started by doing research on the site we are working on, after that we look for inspiration in other arts or areas, that could be a painting, a food plate, fashion, anything that can spark an idea to where we want to go next. After that we start sketching and from there we can take it anywhere until we find a result we love.
I start my morning by working out, after some coffee and breakfast I get to the office where I spend all day, sometime I have meetings at clients offices that I go to, but most days we work at the studio developing new projects and ideas.
At night I get some time to read and watch shows in Italian, currently I’m studying it.
I think is important to have a human perception of the world, to develop this human touch in everything you do, and be involved with the arts as much as you can, visit museums, look at architecture, follow fashion, basically everything that involves design.
Positive: You are always working on a project that has a potential to make a change in society, and designs that have meaning.
Some negatives would be that people will always have their opinions of your designs, not everyone is going to like your work, but for me that makes it more interesting and challenging.
I never let go from my pencils, as soon as a spark of inspiration comes to me I drawit on a piece of paper, sometimes we also like experimenting with volumetric models so we can discover interesting shapes and textures.
I don’t like giving me a certain time to design, I try to manage my time so I have enough time to complete the project but I don’t usually use the clock as working on an schedule.
There isn’t a thing that I like most I enjoy designing buildings, houses, commercial use, cultural use, I think each one brings new challenges and new ideas we can develop.
We are working on a private salon for a client of ours for his house, it’s an space dedicated for gatherings and social reunions, but we took this project that could be very basic because there is no so much room to what you can do with it, and we made it into this sculpture like volume, and we played the interior so it resembles a cave, so I’m really excited to see how we end this project.
I studied architecture in Tec de Monterrey, in Puebla, I didn’t really became involve with design until university before that I like good design in different areas but never really tried to do things or was involved in something regarding design, and then in the middle of the career designing my first projects for school fell in love with design, not just architectural design but all kinds of design.
We design everything in the office from houses to corporate or residential buildings or renovations, I will like to design more cultural buildings like museums, I think it would be an interested challenge.
I think is important to have a human perception of the world, have a human touch in everything you do, and be involve with the arts as much as you can, visit museums, see architecture, follow fashion, basically everything that involves design.
I think the difference between them Is the final message they give to their design, and the work they put at the end on the details and the message they try to bring to their product.
I believe everyone should try to invest in good design because at the end we get to live with it, we see it, we feel it, we interact with it, so investing in it I think is a value we give to our lives.
I would love to design a museum I think is really interesting the shape of the building and the meaning you can bring to the design, and for who, would be for anyone that asks for it.
We work a lot on the meaning of the project, we try to give a story to the design and we get inspire by other arts, so I think that helps us go places that we wouldn’t go if we stick only to architecture.
I love the designs of Es Devlin and Neri Oxman, I believe they do some new work in their fields that are so human and so interested that is hard to keep your eyes from looking at them, and are designs that bring emotions on you.
We did a funeral home so time ago that it was something so different that it was so out there, the interpretation we gave to it delivered a message of peace, the façade and materials we choose made it great.
I always try to keep learning, by any means necessary that could be books, visit museums, see architecture, take a course, always trying to keep growing.