The Architectural League’s 31st annual Emerging Voices Award brings a focus to creative practices that will influence the future direction of architecture. Each of the eight firms will deliver a lecture this month in Manhattan. The  

A recent commission to design a textile museum in a town near Oaxaca in southern Mexico called for the same conceptual clarity that has been the backbone of Productora’s work. The firm first looked at what critical facilities were missing in the area, then designed a building to fill those specific community needs. The museum will provide not only exhibition space but also house a small library, a covered open-air meeting area, public toilets, and a multi-functional room for town musicians.

The firm reinterpreted the “town typology,” creating a sloped roof on the museum and tapping in to the natural resources and materials at its disposal—using wood, stone, and primitive brick ovens as the “basic ingredients” of the building.

“We try to create a certain integration into the urban texture, but at the same time, through scale, orientation, and proportion, we create a very singular and specific element that stands out. We are really interested in simple and strong geometries,” said Ickx.

Dedicated to cultivating new talent in Latin America, Productora also co-founded LIGA, space for architecture, in Mexico City, with curator Ruth Estevez in 2011. LIGA serves not only as an exhibition space but also a forum for emerging architects to discuss ideas about architectural practices in South and Central America.

The project is a natural extension of Productura’s own ethos, which is most successful when there is a “clash between our own personal interests,” said Ickx. “If we bring this [clash] in contrast to a given site and budget, something interesting comes out.”