“Something from Nothing”
Rozana Montiel is the founder and director of the Mexican office ROZANA MONTIEL | ESTUDIO DE ARQUITECTURA (REA) focused on placemaking and design with social impact. Her projects include public space infrastructure, housing, workspaces, industrial units, furniture design and art installations. Her architecture is for "Beauty as a basic right" seeking to design inclusive, sustainable spaces. Coming forth in September is her expo BLANK IN THREE ACTS which will feature fifty of her projects within the framework of the 2021 MEXTROPOLI Architecture and the City International Festival in Mexico City.
In early 2021, Montiel obtained Honorable Mention in the Fassa Bartolo International Prize for Sustainable Architecture for the “Court” project. In 2020, she was a finalist for the Oscar Niemeyer Award for her pro-bono project “Ocuilan House” built for a disadvantaged family whose home was destroyed in the Mexico 2017 earthquakes. In 2019, she was the winner of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture awarded by the Cité de l’Architecture; and served as curator at the Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (BIAU) in Paraguay. Also in the 2019 Glocal Design Magazine Noldi Schreck Awards, she won 2nd place in the Corporate Interior Design category for the “KTBO Office” project and 3rd place in the Social Housing category for the prototype project “From Territory to Inhabitant”. In 2018, her project “Common-Unity” earned her the MCHAP Award for Emerging Architecture; as well as the 1st. place in the Moving category of the Miami Archmarathon Awards and the Overall Award. In 2017, she received the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture recognizing her professional career; and was selected by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Jumex Foundation for Contemporary Art for an artistic research residency at the Bellagio Center in Italy. In 2016, she was a finalist for the Schelling Architecture Award; and was winner of the Emerging Voices Award granted by the Architectural League of New York.
