JSa Arquitectura. An architecture studio founded in Mexico City in 1996 by Javier Sánchez, focused on the transformation and rehabilitation of the urban fabric. Currently led by Aisha Ballesteros, Benedikt Fahlbusch and Javier Sánchez, the practice has a multidisciplinary team based in Mexico City and a second studio in Lima, Peru. With more than 180 built projects in Mexico, South America and Europe, its work encompasses heritage renewal, cultural projects, hospitality experiences, sustainable solutions, community and workplace spaces, and housing research. The studio has received more than 120 national and international awards.
Javier Sánchez Corral (Mexico City, 1969) is the founding partner and director of JSa. He graduated in Architecture from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he received an honourable mention in 1996, and later earned a Master of Science in Real Estate Development from Columbia University in New York in 1998. In 1996, he founded the JSa architecture studio in Mexico City, whose work has focused particularly on urban acupuncture, the recovery of architectural heritage, and the regeneration of the urban fabric.
Among his distinctions are the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2006 for the Brasil 44 social housing project; the International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum in 2007 for the Condesa DF hotel; the Gold Medal at the Mexican National Architecture Biennale in 2020 for the Museo Morelense de Arte Contemporáneo Juan Soriano; and the American Institute of Architects Housing Award in 2022 for Casa Cosecha de Lluvia, projected in collaboration with Robert Hutchison Architecture.
In 2008, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA); in 2009, he joined the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte of Mexico’s Sistema de Apoyos a la Creación y Proyectos Culturales, formerly known as FONCA; and in 2011, he became a member of the Academia Nacional de Arquitectura. In 2014, he was invited to hold the Federico E. Mariscal Extraordinary Chair at the Faculty of Architecture of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In 2023, he was appointed Académico Emérito of the Academia Nacional de Arquitectura, the institution’s highest distinction.
