Design render, aerial view. Courtesy of LANZA ATELIER
Courtesy of SERPENTINE
Design render, aerial view. Courtesy of LANZA ATELIER
Courtesy of SERPENTINE
Design render, aerial view. Courtesy of LANZA ATELIER
Courtesy of SERPENTINE
Established in 2014, LANZA Atelier is a Mexico City–based architecture firm founded by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo. The studio first gained recognition for exhibition design and has since developed projects across Latin America and Europe, often exploring brick, movement, and the interpersonal life of space. In Forest House, a curving white-brick wall threads between existing trees in an attempt to ‘domesticate’ the natural, while 1973–2021, shown at Concéntrico, explored brick as a temporary structure designed for continual reform through disassembly and reuse.
Their work has been presented at major international platforms, including the São Paulo Biennial and the Lisbon Triennale, and in 2023 the studio was honoured with the Emerging Voices award from the Architectural League of New York. This year, LANZA atelier unveiled a serpentine—its design for the 2026 Serpentine Pavilion, one of Britain’s most prestigious architectural commissions—marking the programme’s 25th anniversary in Kensington Gardens.
hube: Great architects do not only construct physical buildings; they also transmit ideas and concepts. How do you understand the relationship between the material and the immaterial in architectural practice?
LANZA atelier: We believe architecture embodies hope and collectiveness. It speaks in a very gracious way by being mostly silent—a framework for the sounds of the world. For the Serpentine Pavilion, we are using brick walls, made from clay, to highlight artisanal construction methods as tried-and-true technologies for our collective present. But these walls, rather than monumental and opaque, are permeable and unapologetically graceful. They reveal the power of walls not to divide, but to bring together. For instance, the brick columns that construct these walls have at least a 10mm gap between them so people can see through a surface that is traditionally opaque, and eventually gazes can connect.
h: What is the significance of time in your designs? Do you intentionally design for a particular rhythm or duration of experience, or do you embrace temporality as in the case of ephemeral structures like the Serpentine Pavilion? How do impermanence and memory intersect in your work?
LA: We started our practice doing exhibition design. These were ephemeral projects with a high degree of freedom for material and structural experimentation because we were putting up structures that were going to be taken down after some months, so the museums and cultural spaces felt comfortable letting us do things that had not been done before. Since then, we have pursued a certain degree of experimentation through our more permanent projects as well.
There is of course a beauty related to the passage of season after season through architecture that we welcome, how materials acquire a certain patina that speaks of a certain place and the energy of use. Time is nevertheless relative, everything we do even if it seems brief—or maybe because of having been brief—can remain in our collective memory.
We try to push the boundaries of our practice with every project, discover what we can achieve as a society. A serpentine is definitely inscribed in this line of thinking.
