Manuel Cervantes joins the judging panel for AR House 2025

Manuel Cervantes is a Mexican architect who graduated from Universidad Anáhuac and a member of the National System of Art Creators and the National Academy of Architecture. In 2004, he founded Manuel Cervantes Estudio (MCE).

Based in Mexico City, he has worked on four different continents and a large variety of typologies, ranging from single-family homes and collective housing to cultural amenities and public transportation infrastructures.

Manuel Cervantes Estudio’s post-hurricane houses in Acapulco, winner of the 2024 AR House awards

Credit: César Béjar

Several of MCE’s projects have been published in The Architectural Review, including Casa Avándaro, the homes for rubber workers in Chiapas, and the post-hurricane houses in Acapulco, which were chosen by Stella Daouti, Boonserm Premthada and Mike Tonkin as the winner of last year’s AR House awards.

Focusing on the specificities of a given site, context and client rather than imposing a particular style, MCE’s architecture explores the relationship between materials, landscapes and sociocultural identities.

Launched in 2010, the AR House awards recognise originality and excellence in the design of dwellings. The house – a key rite of passage for architects – offers the potential for innovation and is critical to the ferment and crystallisation of new ideas.

Looking for projects built in the last five years, AR House recognises creativity and originality, and ideas that push the type forward whatever the scale and construction cost. Find out more about previous winners here.