A.04 Contemporary Research Informed Practices: Gabriela Carillo

Architect: Gabriela Carrillo

Role:  Founder and Principal of Taller Gabriela Carrillo; Co-founder of Collective C733; former Partner at Taller Rocha + Carrillo

Region: Based in Mexico City, Mexico; works throughout Mexico and with public projects in varied regional contexts

Video Lecture Name: “Taller Gabriela Carrillo: Other Eyes”

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About the Practice

Taller Gabriela Carrillo is a Mexico City–based architectural studio founded in 2019, dedicated to creating socially responsive, sensory, and materially grounded design. The practice focuses on public and civic projects that emerge from deep collaboration with local communities and institutions. In the Rensselaer lecture “Other Eyes,” Carrillo discussed how her studio’s work challenges architecture to be seen (and felt) through multiple lenses: the community’s perspective, the landscape’s memory, and the senses beyond vision. The studio often engages in projects of reconstruction, cultural infrastructure, and public space, using local materials and craft to strengthen human connection and collective identity.

About the Architect

Gabriela Carrillo is a Mexican architect and educator whose work bridges empathy, place, and perception. A graduate and professor of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), she has become a leading voice in Latin American architecture for her emphasis on social purpose and inclusivity. Carrillo reflects on her career, designing for different ways of seeing. From her Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired to public buildings designed to be experienced through sound, texture, and light, her approach redefines architecture as a medium of translation between body, place, and community, where design becomes an act of listening as much as building.

Team Research Strategies

Our research centered on the Rensselaer School of Architecture’s lecture announcement for “Taller Gabriela Carrillo: Other Eyes” and supporting materials from the architect’s official website. We reviewed Taller Gabriela Carrillo’s portfolio to understand the studio’s philosophy and examined related interviews and articles in Architectural Review, Diversity in Architecture, and Wallpaper to contextualize her ongoing interest in perception and public engagement. These sources collectively highlight Carrillo’s commitment to designing architecture that invites the public to experience space through empathy, material honesty, and shared vision.

Personal Contributions

On this project, my personal research contributions included critical reflections on Gabriela Carrillo’s influences and how they appear in her work. Her designs are shaped by phenomenology and community-based practice, drawing from architects like Luis Barragán and Peter Zumthor to create spaces that engage the senses through light, texture, and sound. These influences combine with her feminist and participatory values, resulting in architecture that is both empathetic and inclusive. Projects like the Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired clearly reflect this, as Carrillo translates sensory awareness and social engagement into built form. This makes accessibility, perception, and cultural sensitivity central to her design language.