Lucia is an architect and researcher from Mexico City currently based in London. Her work and research centres around housing, migration studies, and educational spaces.
Lucia is a Research Associate (Prosit Philosophiae Foundation) at the Laboratory for Design and Machine Learning in the School of Architecture. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City (2014) and an MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design (Projective Cities) from the Architectural Association School of Architecture (2018) under the FONCA-CONACYT scholarship.
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Practice
From 2014 to 2016 Lucia worked onsite at Torre Reforma, Mexico City's tallest skyscraper and winner of the International Highrise Award 2018. At Torre Reforma she led the renovation of an early twentieth century house on the ground floor lobby.
Research
Lucia’s work is interested in the socio-spatial challenges cities are facing in relation to housing and the provision of services. She has explored the relationship between collective infrastructure, grassroots movements, and private funding. Her dissertation 'From Arrival City to Permanence: Services and Infrastructure in Tijuana,' explored diverse housing and cultural models to house a constant fluctuating migrant population.
Her current research includes how policies and regulatory frameworks have impacted the design and provision of housing in London.
Current and recent projects
The Effects of Migration on Settlements and Urbanisation in Ethiopia and Uganda
2019–2020
Project Team (PI Sam Jacoby, Co-I Adrian Lahoud), QR Global Challenges Research Fund
In collaboration with the University of Addis Ababa, the project undertook fieldwork in Ethiopia in order to create a preliminary classification of settlements and urban area typologies formed by urban migration. The project further conducted a workshop in Addis Ababa in October 2019 with representatives from IOM, UNHCR, local government agencies, and academics specialised in migration studies and policies to discuss new approaches to conceptualising, analysing, and researching spatial design and planning issues arising from migration.
Laboratory for Design and Machine Learning
2018-ongoing
Project Team (Co-PI Sam Jacoby and Adrian Lahoud), Prosit Philosophiae Foundation
The Laboratory for Design and Machine Learning has a multi-disciplinary team working on experimental and fundamental research into new methodologies and knowledge needed for emerging design processes at the intersection of machine learning, data processing and visualisation, and legal and developmental frameworks. The lab is currently working on a pilot study to analyse housing interiors and their spatial organisation with the aid of machine learning to generate new insights into housing design and standards.
Awards and grants
Architectural Association (AA), MPhil dissertation distinction, 2018
Scholarship from Mexico’s National Fund for Culture and Arts (FONCA) and the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT), 2016- 2018
Bachelor’s thesis award of excellence, Mexico City, 2014