(From left to right) Adriana Carlo, Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo G, Maximilian Reuss, Laura Vargas, Andrea Navarro H

We first met Pedro&Juana at the 2015 Chicago Architectural Biennial, where we hosted the second Next Up inside a relaxed forum space they designed in the lobby of the Chicago Cultural Center. For today's Small Studio Snapshot, we're catching up with the Mexico City-based practice.

How many people are in your practice?

5! 4 girls, one boy.

Why were you originally motivated to start your own practice?

I guess we reached a moment that did not promise any further growth or major gain in experience at the studio. Since we worked for an artist, it was a one man show. A the same time, the experience that we acquired with Jorge Padro was so special and in a way, specialized, that it would have been quite difficult to get that in another job. We did not think at that point it was an option to start anew in an architecture office so we decided to do our thing. 

We both had been working for 5-6 years, approximately, with Jorge Pardo and by then, we were living in the Yucatan in the south of Mexico and were finishing off a big project we had been working on since the beginning. So, it all kind of came together and it made sense for us to start something new on our own.

What hurdles have you come across?

So many! Our last and longest working experience was in a sculpture studio so we did not get the proper architecture office experience. It has been hard to set it all up from scratch. Once you start growing it gets harder to collaborate as a studio and hard to find the right tools.

Is scaling up a goal or would you like to maintain the size of your practice?

Does size matter? Time and projects will tell. We set up Pedro&Juana, which is the studio, not us. Our goal is to do projects that are interesting to us. If a project should require for the studio to grow, so be it. But not everything has to be managed in-house. There are possibilities to collaborate to make up for size. 

What are the benefits of having your own practice? And staying small?

We have been working under the premise of thinking through working. I guess staying small pushes you to continue constantly working, versus editing. I am not sure if this will hold true, I guess growing is just a different way of interacting with the work. The benefit and burden of having your own practice is that you are held responsible with what you put out there, and now it is up to you to make it happen and make the architecture fit the narrative you want. Pedro&Juana is still young and in the process of developing its own personality.