About
DONIS is an international studio of architecture, urbanism, research, industrial design, and art. The studio has won several international prizes, including the Dubai Frame, selected as the first-prize winner from 926 proposals in an international competition regulated by UNESCO-UIA; the first prize for the National Palace of Justice in Paris; and the winning design for a new landmark for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games at the City of London. DONIS designs, develops, and builds projects across a wide range of scales and programs, consistently pursuing innovative, sustainable, and socially engaged architecture. DONIS was founded by Fernando Donis, Mexican Dutch architect who received his Master’s degree from the Architectural Association in London through the Design Research Laboratory (DRL), where he studied under Patrik Schumacher and Brett Steele. He also received a PhD in Architecture from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), through the doctoral research program The City as a Project, led by with Pier Vittorio Aureli. His doctoral research, FRAME, is a five-chapter study of the archetype of the frame and its role in the architectural and urban history and culture of Mexico. Following his studies at the Architectural Association, Fernando Donis worked closely with Rem Koolhaas as an Associate at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) for nine years, from 2001 to 2009. During this period, he was the main designer of the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, among numerous other architectural projects and masterplans. He also collaborated with AMO, OMA’s research and design branch, contributing to research projects concerning the European Union. Fernando Donis has taught at the Berlage Institute and the Academy of Architecture in Rotterdam, as well as at Universidad Iberoamericana and Universidad Anáhuac in Mexico, integrating architectural research, design, and urbanism across multiple scales. His work and career have received international recognition. In 2011, CNN Expansión selected him as one of the 30 most promising and influential people in Mexico. In 2015, Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs selected him as one of the country’s most creative Mexicans living abroad.
Michoacán 49
Mexico City, Mexico
Michoacán 49 is a residential project in reddish exposed concrete, conceived as an architectural abstraction of natural fractals. The branches of the tree standing in front of the building inform its intricate morphology, expressed through a sequence of cascading terraces with quasi-geological openings. In this way, the project intersects the biological and geological, materialized through its tectonic expression.
Its sculptural cuts and cantilevered concrete elements emerge from the intersection of interior views, the influence of the existing tree, the relentless process of artistic carving, and the search for sunlight as it moves across the south façade throughout the day. The result is a building conceived less as a conventional residential block than as a large inhabitable sculpture—one in which art, architecture and everyday life become inseparable.
Rather than Le Corbusier's celebrated machine for living, the project redefines architecture as "fractal art for living": an inhabitable work of art through which the city itself could gradually be transformed into a vast urban museum. If art gives meaning to life, then living at Michoacán 49—or simply walking past it in the Condesa neighbourhood—becomes a cathartic public experience, inviting both personal reflection and a collective encounter with architecture as art.
Composed of one-bedroom apartments, the project also advocates for smaller, more efficient dwellings that support a denser, more sustainable, and more walkable city.
