KAREN GARCÍA

Karen is a Mexican Architect from La Salle University. She was an intern at the iconic Luis Barragan House and Studio, where she gave tours sharing about the architectural design of the great Mexican Architect. She has worked at Fernando Romero and Enrique Norten offices. Karen has experience in various projects that include housing, offices, shopping centers, mixed-use, museums, education, and airports.

Now she is an architecture project leader in a large-scale office in Mexico City, where every day she participates, learns, and grows as a professional and personally. For her every day is a new challenge where, through discipline, effort, dedication, patience, and attention to detail, it is possible to achieve any objective. A few days ago, she finished her Master's Degree in Projects for Urban Development at the Universidad Iberoamericana and is currently designing her next steps.

Reflections with Karen

What inspired you to pursue architecture?

Since I was a child, I was interested in everything that implied creativity; I liked to draw, paint, and make manual figures; years later, my mother gave me my first camera. I spent my free time taking photographs of people, places, and landscapes. I realized that I liked the design, and I also liked to look around me.

I was also interested in archaeological sites and their constructions; I knew that I wanted to study some design. I wanted it to be something big, something ambitious, so I linked my interests in design, environment, and construction, concluding that I wanted to study architecture because in it I could find various areas related to design, history, construction, environment, and more where I could expand my capacity and develop my creativity.

During my first years at university, I was inspired by great architects such as Bjarke Ingels, Frank Gehry, and my favorite architect Zaha Hadid; I was interested in their projects because some of them had an unusual design and indeed they implied a challenge to be able to efficiently solve the needs of the user and the architectural program.

Final Project for Architecture Degree, High-Performance Sports Center. Personal ownership. 2014. Photo courtesy of Karen García.

First Job at Centro Operativo BBVA Bancomer, 30 Level Building in the heart of Mexico City. 2014. Photo courtesy of Karen García.

What is the most important thing that you learned in the past year?

The most challenging lesson for me has had to learn to live with uncertainty, I am a very organized person who plans every single detail, tries to anticipated and I like to be ready for everything that I’m going to do, and with the pandemic, everything has changed, many things are uncertain about the future even the nearest future.

The pandemic and the home office, have limiting the times I go out, those things forced me to develop the capacity to be resilient, to be more patient, and adapt quickly to changes.

Another thing that I have reflected on is about the fragility of life, how a virus that we cannot see is capable of ending so many lives in an instant, realizing that we are as vulnerable as human beings, that we are not the owners of the world or the ecosystem and the realization that we have to live each moment and the present because the years don’t return. We don’t have the future assured.

I am feeling and being grateful for being healthy, having my family and friends with good health and I being able to help people who are going through some difficult time.

I believe that last year was the beginning of an opportunity to be empathetic to each other and help each other more than ever.

Last online Master’s Class in Urban Development Projects. 2020. Photo courtesy of Karen García.

What are some architectural organizations (or specific person/role model) that helped you learn to overcome an obstacle? How did they?

During my years as an Architecture student at La Salle University, I learned to work under pressure, I was trained to be efficient 24 hours a day and to be able to organize myself to meet all the objectives that I had to develop in a limited time.

When I had the opportunity to work at Fernando Romero Enterprise (FR-EE), I was able to collaborate in various areas of architecture, and I had several project leaders as bosses, as well as colleagues who taught me things that I didn’t know about architecture, and graphic representation programs. Also, on developing complex projects with the best quality and taking care of every last detail, all this with very short delivery times; in other words, we had to deliver the projects with excellence and quickly.

At FR-EE, I started as an Intern. Little by little, I was moving up until I got the position of Architect in Charge of the Project, so I realized that it is necessary to be patient, do a nice job, be constant and put all the effort into it to make it possible to overcome obstacles and reach the goal without any excuse.

FR-EE Office , part of the team celebrating women’s day. 2018. Photo courtesy of Karen García.

If you were given the opportunity to repeat the year, what is one thing you’d do differently?

Before the pandemic, I definitely would have enjoyed the people I appreciate; I would have visited them more and shared more moments with them.

Another thing that I would do differently would be to give myself more time to live and breathe; I would have had more moments in contact with nature.

Enjoying nature, this was the first time I went to the forest after more than 5 months without leaving home due the pandemic. 2020. Photo courtesy of Karen García.

I'm not really a woman who regrets the things she does or doesn't do; I just try to do everything I have in mind to not regret it later. When things don't turn out the way, I expected to learn from it and move on.

As you reflect on the past year, what did you discover as your biggest strengths?

I discovered in myself the ability to be resilient and adapt to change, even living with uncertainty in an uncertain future. It is necessary to hold on to our goals no matter how difficult the road seems, take action and move towards our dreams, there is always something new to fight for, and there is always someone who will support you.

Karen presenting an Urban Project at Universidad Latinoamericana. 2019. Photo courtesy of Karen García.

In terms of rising concerns and problems (in the architectural profession) over the past year, what is one change that you wished would happen and it did not? This can be in an educational or work atmosphere.

I believe that the pandemic has shown huge inequalities that exist at the social level in cities.

I would like designers, architects, and urban planners, to have the ability to create spaces that consciously turn their gaze towards the environment, taking into account the history of the place, the people who inhabit it, and the natural environment in which it affected. It would be essential to work with multidisciplinary groups of professionals and consider citizen participation to achieve that goal.

It is urgent and necessary to create architecture and integral cities that stop being individualistic since most cities base their creation on the economy and exploit natural resources and territorial consumption.

We should start taking advantage of what we already have and find a way to redesign buildings and cities in a way that is inclusive, equitable, and affordable for all types of socioeconomic levels; it is crucial to generate sustainable projects that previously study the urban ecosystem in which they are located, projects that develop and reduce the levels of consumption, emissions, and urban waste.

Ecosystem map analysis example. Personal ownership. 2020. Photo courtesy of Karen García.

Several projects. 2014 - 2019. Photo courtesy of Karen García.

KAREN GARCÍA

Reflections with Karen

GWENDOLINE ALBRIGHT NDIKUMAGENGE

NINA NDICHU