© Ana Hop

In trying to grasp the concept of national identity, Octavio Paz found that Mexico was not a reality delivered to the one contemplating it, but to whoever is able to immerse in it. This is perhaps well understood by Fernanda Canales (Mexico City, 1974), who balances her academic work with a practice rooted in a thorough knowledge of the medium, its resources, and its people, and only by doing so has she made it possible for projects conceived in the spirit of mending her country’s still abysmal inequality to be veritable agents of change and sources of pride for their users. Arquitectura Viva features five of them in a journey from the city where the air is clear to the deserts of Sonora.