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7
Apr 2025

Event: First Mexican Graduate in Urban Planning from the GSD Returns to Harvard to Reflect on His Experience

Challenges of Urban Planning in an Imperfect Democracy: Making What We Plan Happen: 50 Years of Experience from Roque González Roque González will share how his experience at Harvard shaped his professional practice and reflect on the real-world challenges he encountered—challenges that Harvard never warned him about. Drawing from five decades in the field, he will outline the principles and strategies he has used to overcome these obstacles. Through the lens of three of Mexico’s most significant urban planning projects, he will demonstrate how these principles have been applied to turn ambitious plans into reality. Date: Wednesday, April 9, 2024. […]
7
Apr 2025

Event: MCI Symposium on Urban Futures

Each year, MCI funds a select number of students to carry out innovative research over the summer to investigate the transformation of Mexico’s complex urban landscapes over the next decades. In this year’s symposium, the 2024 summer fellows shared their findings on evolving urban publics in the face of the climate crisis and environmental disruption. MCI Fellows presented the following projects: With reviewers:
7
Apr 2025

Event: Distant Neighbors or Regional Partners? Reflecting on US-Mexico Relations Under Two New Administrations. A Two-Day Symposium

Though the newly elected presidents of Mexico and the United States started their terms mere months apart, both signaled the importance of the border to their agenda. As Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum has voiced longstanding concerns about the border and U.S. overreach, as well as a range of issues and treaties — from NAFTA to water sharing to nearshoring and energy challenges. In the first weeks of his second term, Donald Trump’s swift imposition of tariffs, building of a holding camp for migrants at the border, and targeting Latin Americans for deportation seem to have set an agenda […]
18
Apr 2024

Event: Delving into Mexican Cities Complexities: A Conversation with Diane Davis

Mexican cities face enormous urban challenges. From acute water shortages to housing crises and the surge in violence, these demand immediate attention. Join the Harvard University Mexican Association of Students (HUMAS) for the final edition of Exploring Mexico Across Harvard this academic year, for an impactful conversation with Dr. Diane Davis, Director of the Mexican Cities Initiative at the GSD, and Faculty Chair of the Committee on Mexico at the Harvard David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Together, we’ll explore these issues through the lens of equity in governance, informality, violence, and globalization within the urban realm. Save the […]
15
Apr 2024

Conference: Mexico + H2O = Challenges, Reckonings, and Opportunities

Last year, “Mexico + H2O: Challenges, Reckonings, and Opportunities” brought together policy makers, scholars, and activists to discuss how lack and abundance of water, contaminated and privatized as well as communal, has altered both Mexican cities and rural areas. In many ways, water is synonymous with Mexican identity — the rise of Tenochtitlan was possible because of the control of water and the Mexican Revolution was as much a battle for land as it was for access to the resource that would water post-revolutionary lands. More recently battles over water on the U.S. – Mexico border are potential previews of […]

1
Apr 2024

Concealed Public Transportation in Latin America: A Rediscovery by Bus

Juan Fernández González is a Master of Architecture Candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and an Architectural Sketching Course Lecturer at McGill University. He grew up in Cuernavaca (Mexico) and Montreal (Canada). In his article for ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America, Juan reflects on his research on colectivos, privately-owned public transportation, as forms of concealed city infrastructure. He shares how his research began in Mexico City as a 2022 MCI Summer Research, and later evolved into a comparative investigation of colectivos in Buenos Aires and Santiago. He is currently working on a publication that draws lessons from Buenos Aires and Santiago […]

2
May 2022

Book Release: Architecture without Architects

Sandra Calvo is a visual and experimental artist, of social practices, based in Mexico City. In the last years, her work has explored issues concerning informal housing in Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico. She recently published the book Architecture without Architects (Editorial Arquine, Mexico City: 2020).  Architecture without Architects (2011-2014) is a sustained political and aesthetic exploration, a visual essay of the informal unsanctioned city. This participatory social art practice deconstructs the notion of the house as a fixed and stable entity. Here, instead the house is fragile and in flux. The project explores self-building as a practice of resistance in […]
22
Apr 2022

Carta Blanca Beer and Urban Development in Monterrey

Angélica Oteiza is pursuing a Master of Landscape Architecture at Harvard GSD. Trained as an architect, she also has in ephemeral, service, and participatory design practices. Her work explores questions of cultural manifestation, non-traditional approaches to design, and transformation process of the built environment aimed towards sustainability. Carta Blanca Beer: Monterrey, Mexico’s Cultural Keystone Angelica Oteiza examines how the material economy of Carta Blanca beer shaped Monterrey, Mexico’s urban development and cultural formation. Her work treats Carta Blanca as the narrative thread that catalyzed Monterrey’s twentieth-century development. She explores how the beer – and the economic and spatial visions that […]
9
Mar 2022

Laura Janka Reflects on Urban Indexing and ABCDMXYZ

Laura Janka Zires is a former GSD student and member of the MCI community. She is an architect and urban designer (Architecture-UNAM + Urban Design-Harvard) with experience in public space, civic engagement, and creative planning processes. Laura currently lives in São Paulo and continues to build “ABCDMXYZ” while working with Brazilian universities to develop urban architecture curriculums. — Aron Lesser Speaks With Laura Janka about ABCDMXYZ and Urban Indexing Q: What is ABCDMXYZ and how did the project begin?   A: Dutch Architect Rem Koolhaas once said that almost every project begins with a phrase, with a concept. When working within […]
6
Mar 2022

Avocado Urbanisms

Gerardo Corona is pursuing a Master of Architecture in Urban Design at Harvard GSD. He is an architect trained in Mexico with experience in projects across a variety of scales. Gerardo’s current interests range from the political economy of space to the dichotomy of natural and built environments. Avocados from México: A Designed Landscape for Extraction It is possible to read into contemporary societies through their relationships to food – its origins, how it is sourced and who produces it. With the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the “fetishization of commodity” became stronger, particularly in food […]