POWER

Playa Chomo, the first project by Taller Ken’s FUNdaMENTAL Design Build Initiative, was a temporary installation in the center of Guatemala City.

Two-Way Street Taller Ken may be a young firm, but the international architecture studio is already directly investing in the next generation of designers.

By RACHEL GALLAHER

ARCHITECTS INÉS GUZMÁN MENDEZ AND GREGORY KAHN MELITONOV, founders of the international firm Taller Ken, met in 2010 while both were working at the Genoa office of Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano. As members of the architectural design team for the Whitney Museum of American Art and the headquarters building for the High Line, Guzmán Mendez and Melitonov had more than enough work and travel to fill their days, but despite their involvement in some of the world’s most renowned architectural projects of the time, the duo wanted something more.

Gathering a group of young employees from Piano’s office, they planned an artistic intervention in an area of Genoa that Melitonov describes as “forgotten, with a bridge that was a bit of urban blight.” The group strung a laundry line under an elevated highway overpass and hung it with nearly 500 hand-painted T-shirts. It was a simple installation, but it touched on multiple ideas that interested Guzmán Mendez and Melitonov, from community and collaboration to ways that design can stimulate wide cultural conversations.

“A lot of people have an interest in architecture but don’t have an easy access point to it,” Melitonov says. “They see it as something very high-end that requires a lot of money and knowledge to access or understand. We try to provide a way for people to participate in the discussion, to layer more voices into and

GRAY MARCELO GUITTEREZ

FROM TOP: Children playing at Barrio Gerona, a project focused on rehabilitating a defunct rail depot in Guatemala City. For the Parque O2 intervention, Taller Ken used colorful bamboo poles to enliven the pathways of an underused park in San José, Costa Rica. Both projects were designed and built through the FUNdaMENTAL Design Build Initiative.

MARCELO GUITTEREZ; ANDRES GARCIA LACHNER encourage more dialogue around the design process.”

Guzmán Mendez and Melitonov might not have known it back when they were stringing shirts along the overpass, but they were setting down the roots of their future architectural practice. After their contracts with Piano’s office ended, Guzmán Mendez, who is from Guatemala, asked Melitonov for advice regarding design opportunities she had back home. The two realized how well they worked together and that their values and design approaches aligned, so they decided to formalize a practice.

Launched in 2013, Taller Ken is based in three countries, with team members in Guatemala City; San José, Costa Rica; and New York City. The firm’s first project was the renovation of a single-story concrete-block building in Guatemala City for the menswear brand Saúl E. Méndez. Since then, it has completed more than two dozen projects in its signature playful style and bright range of colors.

In 2016, the firm launched the FUNdaMENTAL Design Build Initiative—a project that invites 10 early-career or student architects and designers from around the world to further develop their skills by working on a project for three months in Costa Rica or Guatemala. “The initiative was a direct result of a building competition we had entered in Guatemala that we didn’t win,” Melitonov says. “We wasted thousands of dollars on the process. If we had just taken the money and gone out and built something ourselves, that would have been a much better use of the money.”

After crowdsourcing nearly $10,000, Guzmán Mendez and Melitonov rented out a youth hostel around the corner from their Guatemala office, borrowed a fleet of bikes from a nearby cycling shop, and convinced several companies to donate raw materials. The 10 participants hailed from countries around the world and lived together in the hostel while working with Taller Ken to plan a project that would enrich the community where they were staying. The result, Playa Chomo (Connection Beach), was a temporary installation at the base of the Centro Cultural Miguel Ángel Asturias, a green

space in central Guatemala City that contains the national theater. A large arch made from thousands of meters of colorful elastic ribbon, Playa Chomo reactivated a disused space and educated the participants about the importance of civic and cultural renewal, as well as giving them all skills in negotiation, collaboration, and problem-solving.

“We’re learning on the fly from the kids as much as they are learning from us,” Guzmán Mendez says. She and Melitonov aim to keep the brainstorming and design process as equitable as possible because they believe that “anyone can bring a great idea to the table, no matter how young they are or how much experience they have.” h

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