Comunal

Comunal was founded in Mexico City by Mariana Ordóñez Grajales and Jesica Amescua Carrera.

As a team made up of women, they have the social commitment to reflect on the acts of domination and patriarchal violence that are exercised from the architecture on women, their families, communities and territories, with the aim of finding new ways of accompanying social processes related to the right to habitat, from an intercultural stance that rejects racism, colonialism and technocratic visions.

They value the architectural object for its capacity to be functional, formal and aesthetically appropriate to the essence of the place, the culture and the people, but above all, as the representation of negotiation processes between consensus and dissent. For this reason, they do not conceive architecture as an individual author's work or as a static, artistic and unmodifiable object; but as a collaborative, live, open and constantly evolving social process that allows residents to express their ideas, needs and aspirations, always recognizing them as the center of projects and decision-making. In other words, they visualize the inhabitants as subjects of action and not as objects of intervention.

To understand the multiple ways in which the human habitat manifests itself, we have resorted to the democratic vision of Participatory Architecture and Social Production of Habitat, whose notions understand that individuals from any social group and cultural context have the ability to identify their needs, propose solutions and make the appropriate decisions for the development of its territory. Its integrative and intercultural approach respects all forms of life and has led us to dismantle the hegemonic practice of the architect to develop a role of facilitators and mediators who accompany communities in the defense of their habitat, promoting the exchange of knowledge, critical reflection and the construction of collective knowledge.