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"City of origin"
An initiative dedicated to recovering, studying, and transmitting the principles of community-centered design that enable places to endure.
What would a city be like if it were conceived to last for centuries?
Enduring cities are not the product of individual buildings alone, but of a culture of inhabiting rooted in the relationships between territory, architecture, public space, community, and time. This urban lab explores these principles as a foundation for resilient places, cultural continuity, and urban regeneration.
What have we lost?
Fragmentation divides the city into isolated functions, leaving architecture disconnected from the life around it.
Disconnection separates buildings from their territory, climate, and sense of place.
Discontinuity breaks architecture from memory, tradition, and local identity.
Declining public life produces spaces that no longer support encounter, community, or belonging.
When architecture is conceived as isolated objects rather than part of a larger urban fabric, the city loses continuity and collective meaning. Moving away from community-centered design and traditional urbanism limits the capacity of places to evolve, endure, and regenerate across generations.
(Picture by Pawel Nolbert)
Pilot Project: Cuauhnahuac "The Ethernal Spring City"
Cuauhnahuac is the Laboratory’s pilot project, demonstrating a methodology for urban regeneration rooted in traditional urbanism and community-centered design. It explores how an existing city can recover continuity, public life and identity through the relationship between architecture, urban form, and community.
A Town for Belonging — Ocotepec, Mexico
Narrow streets and pedestrian paths prioritize social life, while vehicles and parking are placed along the perimeter and near main plazas.
Integrates housing, schools, community facilities, a church, plazas and gardens within a compact, walkable urban fabric, creating a safe and dignified place to build community.
A new settlement transforms informal growth into a coherent, walkable neighborhood rooted in traditional urbanism.
Coptic Village — Farafra, Egypt
A settlement conceived as an urban fabric rather than an assemblloy of buildings. Streets, courtyards, and civic spaces create a coherent hierarchy rooted in traditional patterns of settlement and community.
The Coptic Church forms the spiritual and civic axis of the settlement, organizing streets, public spaces, and community life around a shared center.
Preserving the cultural and spiritual identity of the community is essential to its continuity. Architecture becomes a means of carrying memory, faith, traditions, and collective life into the future.