Humans, a complex species, require more than just a roof over our heads to inhabit this planet. Our complexity demands not merely shelter but also a platform that nurtures both our physical well-being and intellect, enabling us to thrive. To exist, we need structures that mediate between ourselves and the ecosystems to which we belong—structures that support and care for us.
Among these, the house has always played a central role. As a protective structure, it delivers a primary form of care1 and has been integral to human life since the dawn of civilization. Expressed in countless forms, the house’s evolution in use, meaning, and design has both shaped and reflected sociopolitical changes throughout history. The United Nations defines housing as the “basis of stability and security for an individual or family. The center of our social, emotional, and sometimes economic lives, a home should be a sanctuary—a place to live in peace, security, and dignity.”2 Housing was enshrined as a fundamental human right in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and reaffirmed in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Even before these global declarations, Mexico recognized housing as a constitutional right. Article 4 of its 1917 Constitution declares: “Every family has the right to enjoy dignified and decent housing. Instruments and assistance necessary to achieve this objective will be established by the law.”3
Yet, the definition of a house is neither neutral nor universal. Societies have sought to establish standard definitions, treating habitation as more than an individual act—it is deeply tied to the ontological conditions of place, culture, and history. The most transformative redefinition of the house emerged with the Industrial Revolution, fundamentally reshaping its social, political, and cultural meanings. The house most of us inhabit today—the one that is codified into laws, treated as a right, and replicated globally—was solidified during this paradigm shift. As Fernanda Canales puts it:
The modern house (the origin of the house we live in and build today all over the world) is based on three fictions: the house as a place of rest, as if work could be separated from life and domestic chores would disappear; the house as private property available to all, as if by considering it a commodity it were not determined by the logic of the market, making it unaffordable to the majority; and the house as a sanctuary for the nuclear family (husband, wife and children), as if there were no other formats of coexistence, and the private and the public were two independent fractions.4
The house, as defined during the Industrial Revolution, was conceived as a place of rest for the worker after long hours at work. It became a space for his family, managed by the wife—later redefined as the consumer—tasked with reproduction, caregiving, and domestic labor.5 This concept positioned the house as the antithesis of the workplace, yet integral to the chain of production in industrial society. The house was even described using the same language as the factory.
This house, as a place of rest, became the central and defining feature of the society of production. It served the worker from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, while dreams and aspirations—many of which remain inaccessible to the majority—were framed by the cities we inhabit. One such aspiration is the “lazy Sunday morning,” a dream that remains out of reach for most. Sundays are often a day of labor, both paid and unpaid: people go to work, clean, shop, prepare for the week, and care for children and the elderly.
The Industrial Revolution added new fantasies to an age-old typology. The house, as a space, has long been tied to systems of economic and political control, perpetuating hierarchies and gendered divisions of labor. It has served as a site for domination and reproduction of social structures.6 Despite its framing as a place of rest, for many, it has never offered a single “lazy Sunday morning.”7
When Mexico’s 1917 Constitution enshrined housing as a right, linking shelter to employment through the male worker, it inadvertently commodified housing, creating crises of access, affordability, and quality. Since then, government responses to housing shortages and inequities have shaped Mexico’s urban and domestic landscapes. Every administration has sought solutions, yet housing remains a focal point of economic and political challenges.
In today’s cities, the house has become a financial asset, a vehicle for capital extraction, and a cornerstone of economic accumulation. Its role in contemporary society reflects the priorities of production and profit rather than care or human well-being. The house of today is not designed to nurture; it is designed to perform.
This studio will challenge students to rethink the role of domesticity and shelter in addressing the interconnected nature of human existence. Cities exist because we need one another to survive, yet the contemporary city prioritizes exchange over relationships. To exist in this city, one must earn a place through production, even though existence itself depends first on care—a form of labor often invisible or undervalued.
The studio’s aim is to explore the necessary networks and infrastructures to transform the city and the house from spaces of production to spaces of care. Examples of resistance to the commodification of housing—community land trusts, housing cooperatives, social ownership models, and public housing—offer valuable lessons. Latin America, in particular, has a rich history of innovative domestic and communal experiments, from communal kitchens to cooperative housing and community centers.
In Bogotá, Colombia, “blocks of care”8 have emerged to support caregivers, primarily women, who sustain the city through unpaid labor. These spaces provide essential services and opportunities for exchange. In Mexico City’s Iztapalapa borough, UTOPIAS9 (Unidades de Transformación y Organización para la Inclusión y Armonía Social) have become a groundbreaking investment in social infrastructure, offering care and community services for underserved populations. These initiatives, championed by Clara Brugada, represent a transformative approach to urban design. Recently elected as the city’s mayor, Brugada plans to replicate UTOPIAS on a larger scale, aiming to build 100 such centers. At the national level, President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced plans to produce one million affordable, participatory homes for Mexicans.
This studio invites students to study these models of resistance, focusing on UTOPIAS and affordable housing initiatives in Mexico City. Students will analyze three boroughs in depth, identifying opportunities to create architectural interventions that provide care through community infrastructure and housing systems. The studio will emphasize support for marginalized groups, including survivors of domestic violence, single mothers, LGBTQ+ individuals, indigenous populations, seniors, and undocumented migrants.
The studio will unfold in several phases:
- Self-Reflection: Students will create self-portraits to reflect on their own domesticity and primary shelter.
- Mapping Systems of Care: Students will analyze their neighborhoods, mapping familial, communal, and collective care systems.
- Research and Precedents: Through extensive study, including a studio trip, students will examine precedents like UTOPIAS and cooperative housing models.
- Design Interventions: Students will develop proposals for care infrastructures and domestic systems tailored to specific boroughs in Mexico City.
The studio trip will take students to Los Angeles and Mexico City, providing direct exposure to spaces that challenge traditional domesticity. In Mexico City, students will visit UTOPIA sites, meet key stakeholders, and explore cooperative and social housing projects.
Throughout the course, students will engage with leading voices in architecture and urbanism through lectures and discussions. Guest speakers may include Elke Krasny, Zaida Muxí, Elisa Iturbe, Anna Puigjaner, Cristina Gamboa, and Maria Scheherezade Giudici.
The studio’s ultimate goal is to design architectures of care—spaces that prioritize human existence and relationships over production and profit, reimagining the house and city as interconnected ecosystems of support and solidarity.
Assignment 1 (due Friday, Jan 10) - self-portrait of domestic reality; constructed image, collage, photomontage, 2D (see below)
Assignment 2 (due Mon Jan 27th) - mapping of the community, 3D drawing, model, maquette (see below)
Midterm Review (due Thursday March 6th) - concept & program for utopia site
Final Review (due Thursday, May 1st) - design of utopia & housing
- In this text, care refers to the essential labor required for human existence, encompassing activities such as childbearing, cooking, cleaning, healing, sleeping, bathing, and nursing.
- “The Human Right to Adequate Housing,” Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-housing/human-right-adequate-housing.
- Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, title 1, art. IV , para. 7, as published in Diario Oficial: Organo de Gobierno Provisional de la Republica Mexicana
- Fernanda Canales, introduction to Mi casa, tu ciudad: Privacidad en un mundo compartido (Barcelona: Puente Editores, 2021); text.
- Dolores Hayden, “Selling Mrs. Consumer,”in Redesigning the American Dream: Gender, Housing, and Family Life (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002), 50.
- Zaida Muxí Martínez, Mujeres, casas y ciudades (Barcelona: Dpr-Barcelona, 2019), 105.
- As David Madden and Peter Marcuse write, “Housing crisis is a predictable, consistent outcome of a basic characteristic of capitalist spatial development: housing is not produced and distributed for the purposes of dwelling for all; it is produced and distributed as a commodity to enrich the few. Housing crisis is not a result of the system breaking down but of the system working as it is intended.” See “The Resident Is Political,” introduction to In Defense of Housing (London: Verso, 2016), 19.
- Canales, Fernanda. ‘Un laboratorio para las personas, el planeta y la democracia’. El Pais Semanal, Especial Ciudades, June 21st, 2023.
- Morales Olea, Daniel. ‘Clara Brugada da inicio a la expansión del programa de Utopías en Ciudad de México’. El Pais, Mexico, November 12th, 2024.