Michel Rojkind: Rising Star
Michel Rojkind is not yet 40, and he’s only been designing buildings for a dozen years. Prior to that, he was a rock ‘n’ roll drummer for a decade — not your typical architecture career path. But he’s fast gaining an international reputation that places him in very heady competition.
Since 2002, Rojkind has had his own Mexico City shop, rojkind arquitectos, which was recognised in 2005 by Architectural Record as one of the world’s ten best “design vanguard” firms. He’s built about 15 projects to date in Mexico, has multiple projects underway worldwide, and has been shortlisted in competitions in Canada and Spain.
Most impressively, Rojkind’s was one of just five architectural firms worldwide invited to submit designs for an enormous cultural centre in the Middle East. “It’s a very big deal”, he acknowledges. “I get invited to lots of competitions, but this one was different because of the large scale and few entries. The other four are these monster architectural firms, so just to be included in that circle with the big guys is such an honour”.
Multi-Use Middle East Complex
The assignment: to design a nearly three million square foot cultural, educational and commercial centre that plays a key role in a long-range plan to boost tourism. The centre is to contain a hotel, exhibition spaces, an architecture and design school, concert halls, cinemas, a children’s museum, library, offices, restaurants and a mosque. The multi-use venue will occupy a dramatic ocean-front site.
Rojkind’s design, created on the Mac and presented to the client as a video edited in Final Cut Pro, is both contemporary and subtle. “I was influenced by the dusky colours of the city, the women in veils, and the whole notion of what lies behind something”, he says. “I wanted it to have a homogeneous feel, as if it grew from the desert site”.
His approach divides the centre into three organic-looking forms that rise like rocks on the location. “When you talk about a project this huge”, says Rojkind, “you imagine that it will have a big-city feel — buildings with flashy skins and colours and topologies”.
But that’s not how Rojkind saw it. He lifted his rock-like structures to create shadows on the plazas below, designed thematic bioclimatic courtyards and roof gardens, and enveloped his buildings in airy skins, conceived with contemporary artist Antonio Sánchez. “Based on Antonio’s knowledge of fractal geometry, applied to Islamic motifs, we designed these flowing, translucent, pre-cast concrete forms”, explains Rojkind. “They look perforated, and they let in lots of light”.
The CSI of Mexico City
Rojkind was on track towards the traditional definition of success when he stepped back and thought hard about what he really wanted. “I had the opportunity to work in a big architectural office”, he says with a shrug. “But I hate conforming with what I’m supposed to be”. Instead he took the riskier path of launching his own firm so he could design buildings his own way.
“For me, it always starts with the client”, says Rojkind. “When you step into my office”, he adds, laughing, “it looks more like the CSI of Mexico City than an architecture firm”.
Rojkind delves deep into his clients’ lives, exploring their families, careers, pursuits and interests to inform his designs. “It’s about knowing the person I’m working for”, he says. “I want to know how the husband and wife met, how they see themselves and their children in the future, what moves them, and so on. All that influences the design of the house”.
