The Architectural Review and the Architects' Journal celebrated more leading ladies in the 2017 Women in Architecture Awards today. They announced Gabriela Carrillo as Architect of the Year, while Rozana Montiel received the £10,000 Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture. Last month, Denise Scott Brown was honored with the Jane Drew Prize.

Previously awarded to architects like Jeanne Gang, Francine Houben, and Michál Cohen and Cindy Walters, Architect of the Year recognizes design excellence in a single built project completed in 2016. The Moira Gemmill Prize supports the continuing professional development of the recipient. Previous winners include Ambrosi Etchegaray co-founder Gabriela Etchegaray and Hannah Lawson of John McAslan + Partners.

Gabriela Carrillo, Taller de Arquitectura Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo, Criminal Courts for Oral Trials, Pátzcuaro, Mexico.

Rozana Montiel, Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura, Tepoztlan House, Mexico.

Carrillo and Montiel were commended for their commitment to practicing sustainably and democratically with local communities throughout Mexico. “The judges were impressed with Gabriela Carrillo’s ability to design flexible spaces, and work with light and shadow to such compelling effect,” said Christine Murray, the founder of Women in Architecture and editor-in-chief of The Architectural Review and The Architects’ Journal. “And they were inspired by Rozana Montiel’s sensitive and perceptive approach to community buildings.”

Architect of the Year: Gabriela Carrillo

Gabriela Carrillo, Taller de Arquitectura Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo, Criminal Courts for Oral Trials, Pátzcuaro, Mexico.

Out of a competitive shortlist, the Architect of the Year jury awarded Gabriela Carrillo for her Criminal Courts for Oral Trials project in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico. In her practice, Taller Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo, Carrillo focuses on always finding an impactful balance between an existing building and contemporary architectural expression.

The Criminal Courts building was designed as “a walled city where the wall could be understood more as a limit, and the inner spaces could be experienced as an open town,” Carrillo says in the Architectural Review's March issue.

Gabriela Carrillo, Taller de Arquitectura Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo, Criminal Courts for Oral Trials, Pátzcuaro, Mexico.

The stone oval building surrounds an arrangement of rectangular brick constructions designed with sloped tiled roofs that respond to the region's abundantly rainy climate conditions. The voids in the structure are filled with gardens, which are overlooked by the building.

“The main problem we had to cope with in this building was to find a way to comply with very strict security rules while at the same time proposing an idea of space that would give everyone a feeling of freedom and transparency,” Carrillo said.

Moira Gemmill Prize: Rozana Montiel

Rozana Montiel, Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura, Veracruz Cancha, Mexico.

Rozana Montiel's sensitive, collaborative engagements with local communities stood out to the jury for the Moira Gemmill Prize. Founder of Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura, Montiel maintains a smaller-scale, “hands-on” approach to her work, which includes local urban rehabilitation projects in sensitive areas around Mexico. Montiel also conducts what she calls “site-actions”, or low-cost interventions to directly engage and assess the needs of local residents. 

These projects, typically expressed in simple architectural forms, include the Veracruz Cancha (court), the Tepoztlan House, and the San Pablo Xalpa Unidad Habitacional housing unit. 

Rozana Montiel, Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura, Tepoztlan House, Mexico.

“[W]hen people become engaged in the betterment of their community, they care more for each other”, Montiel tells the AR.

“All architecture is political. We become political the moment we build in, with, or for the polis, the city. Everyday decisions build the city. We can read in daily spaces the political priorities of our society...,” she says.

Find more project images in the gallery below.