Notes

Analysis

Initial Charrete

On-site sketches

Sections

Schemes

Project Description

Naves over the Willamette is a boathouse proposal centered on the experience of flotation.

The project traces the rower’s transition from land-heavy, grounded, and anchored-to water, where mass gives way to buoyancy and lightness. Architecture becomes the mediator of this passage, guiding the body through a gradual loss of weight and a shift in spatial perception.

This gradient is expressed through both programmatic and formal decisions: from solid, enclosed volumes at the upper levels to progressively open and translucent structures as the building approaches the river.

Drawing from naval traditions and the etymological roots of the nave, the project integrates modular systems, rhythmic structural repetition, and material weathering to ground the architecture within the culture of rowing and the landscape of the Willamette River

Floor plans

Renders

Project Description

5314 NE 13th Ave Affordable Housing is a four-story multifamily housing proposal located in Portland’s Vernon neighborhood. The project addresses the area’s growing affordability challenges, where relatively high incomes coexist with significant rent burden, particularly among single-parent households and seniors.

Design Strategy

The design leverages Oregon and Portland affordable housing code provisions to maximize density while remaining sensitive to the surrounding residential context. A central courtyard organizes the project, improving daylight, ventilation, and social interaction, while breaking down the building mass to reduce its perceived scale along the street.

The unit mix includes studios, one-, two-, and three-bedroom units, supporting a diverse range of household types. Decentralized common spaces and ground-floor amenities encourage everyday interaction, strengthen community ties, and promote safety through visual connections between private and public spaces.

Unit design

Strategic openess. The layout provides open spaces, each one with an appropriate threshold allowing privacy and smooth transitions between spaces.

Split bathroom. A split bathroom allows for a most efficient use. Having an independent sink, the most commonly used amenity, reduces friction between the users.

Presentation Boards

How would a $3 billion investment, built at Mediterranean construction prices, reshape your city’s transit system?

The answer isn’t straightforward, but here’s one thing I can tell you right away: you’re not turning any Sunbelt city into Tokyo anytime soon.

I’ve been playing the simulation game Subway Builder lately — for an ungodly amount of time, to be honest.

For those unfamiliar, Subway Builder is a new game developed by Colin Miller that puts you in charge of planning a subway system in any of 23 American cities. Since its initial beta release, the game has seen several improvements and keeps getting better. Overall, a great use of thirty bucks.

The game isn’t just fun, it also offers surprising insight into what it actually takes for a city to build great mass transit, or how easy it is to fail and go bankrupt trying.

So, why does the title say urban planning and not transport planning?
Well, that takes us to my first lesson.

1. The city’s development patterns shape the potential for mass transit

In normal mode, you start the game with $3 billion in the bank — but how far that money goes depends mostly on the city itself. What do I mean by that?

Let’s compare two similarly sized metro areas: Philadelphia (6.2M) and Houston (7.1M).

As a benchmark, I built a fully underground heavy-rail line (level –5 for all stations) and kept the default fare of $3.00 in both cases.

In Philly, a strong north–south corridor managed to reach:

• over 75,000 daily trips

• 2.2% modal share

• $32 million in daily profit

Meanwhile, in Houston, a north–south corridor with a westward branch, probably the lowest-hanging fruit in its current system, only achieved:

• 30,000 daily trips

• 0.8% modal share

• $8 million in daily losses

This shows you can’t escape a city’s existing development patterns. Those same $3 billion stretch much further in Philadelphia and could even justify future expansions, while Houston would struggle just to cover operations.

In real life, it’s a chicken-and-egg story. Development patterns and mass transit shape each other. You can’t have Houston without cheap oil and highways, or New York’s density without its historic railways and subway.

To end this lesson on a higher note: no city is doomed.
Not being able to support a subway today doesn’t mean you can’t have good transit. You can still design a great, efficient bus network, one that reshapes urban form and even creates the network effect needed to justify a subway someday.

Which leads me to my second point…

2. The network effect is real

Okay, let’s go back to our Philly run. We had a fairly successful north–south line.
What do you think would happen if we added a short east–west line?

If the east–west line existed in a vacuum, its ridership would be around 38,000 daily trips — nothing particularly impressive.

But if we run both lines together, total ridership becomes significantly higher than the sum of each operating on its own. How much higher?

• North–South: 85,000 trips (+21%)

• East–West: 53,000 trips (+39%)

Our combined ridership jumped from 100,000 to 138,000 daily trips — an overall increase of 38%. Even the transit modal share went up to 4.4%.

In other words, in transit planning, 1 + 1 ≠ 2. It’s more like 1 + 1 = 3.

That’s the network effect — and its true power.

The best part is that most cities can experience it even without a subway. A well-designed bus network can generate the same effect. That’s how cities like Toronto manage to achieve such high ridership with a relatively small subway system.

And there’s also another way to accomplish this with smaller investments: elevated light rail, which I’ll explain in the next point.

3. Elevated light rail is the way to go for most cities

Remember our $3 billion investment for the North–South line?
Well, the East–West line only required $850 million, and given that its ridership reached over 60% of the North–South line, it’s clearly a much better use of our money.

There’s also another key lesson here, one that’s not perfectly represented in the game, but incredibly relevant in real life.
As Jarrett Walker says, frequency is freedom, and a light metro makes it far easier to maintain high frequencies across the system.

That’s crucial, because in most American cities, current development patterns simply can’t sustain a frequent heavy-rail network. A frequent elevated light-rail system, however, is an entirely realistic possibility.

And with in-game construction costs (0.8× for elevated vs 1.0× for cut-and-cover tunneling), you can build roughly 25% more subway for the same budget.
If that were true in real life, wouldn’t you be in favor of elevated rail?

Of course, building great transit isn’t just about spending smart, it’s about avoiding dumb, expensive mistakes.
Which brings us to the next point.

4. Improvisation is expensive, plan beforehand!

This happens more often than I’d like to admit, and not just in the game, but in real life. It’s surprisingly common for transit agencies to launch projects without a master plan or a broader vision for where the network should go.

Take my hometown of Guadalajara, for example. With three light-metro lines and two BRT corridors, there are nine interchange stations in total, and I’d say only three are truly decent.
The rest involve long walks, endless staircases (some uncomfortably narrow), and even having to exit the station and cross huge intersections. Not great.

And that happens a lot in Subway Builder too.
If you don’t have a clear idea from the start of how many lines you want and where they’ll intersect, you’ll end up with costly deep-bore tunnels, awkward curves, or overly circuitous routes, all of which, in real life, would make construction far more complex and expensive.

In the game, it’s mostly fine, but in real life, it’s not.
When you’re working with a limited budget (and there’s almost never a reason to overspend), or trying to justify tax dollars to the public, you can’t afford to tell people they’ll need to climb three staircases and walk 800 feet just to transfer lines.

It’s always better to plan ahead, even for expansions that might never happen.
You might spend a little less today, but you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble down the line.

On that note, though, there are times and places where spending a little more actually makes sense.

5. Real state prices shape transit - Demolitions

Usually, you’d want to avoid demolitions, right?
But it really depends on the city, the location’s centrality, and local real estate prices.

When you’re tunneling under Midtown Manhattan, demolishing a couple of towers could cost more than a small line extension.

But in Dallas, tearing down a few houses to create a wider turning radius, thus achieving higher operating speeds, might be little more than a rounding error.

Ironically, it’s often that first scenario, the expensive one, that can actually support successful transit.
So, choose your poison.

And speaking of geography…

6. Job density and job centralization are fundamental

When we talk about density in urban planning, we usually mean population density.
However, job density is just as important, and in some cases, even more so.

A strong central business district drives trips across the entire metro area, especially when compared to jobs scattered at low densities along highways. That’s something Canadian cities tend to do far better than many American ones.

This is why it’s a real problem when companies move their headquarters to suburban campuses or edge towns, they’re almost impossible to serve with high-quality mass transit. Cities should actively work to prevent that trend.

The ideal scenario is having residential density (trip origins) and job density (trip destinations) aligned along the same corridor.
That’s what makes route planning for high ridership so effective.

And that’s something I always emphasize when talking about Transit-Oriented Development (TOD): it’s not just about living close to transit, it’s also about working and going places close to it.

There are a few final points I’d like to highlight.

Bonus. It’s only fun because of Mediterranean construction costs.

It’s no secret that construction prices across the U.S. are through the roof.
The Second Avenue Subway cost over $2.5 billion per mile, and at those prices, you can’t really build much of anything.

Bonus 2. New York plays in its own league

Playing Subway Builder in New York quickly shows just how deeply the city is shaped by transit, and how much easier it is to run profitable lines and finance expansion.
No other city even comes close.

Cities like Chicago, Boston, D.C., and San Francisco all have respectable ridership potential, but New York simply plays in its own league.

Final thoughts

There are plenty of lessons to take from the game, but we also need to remember the oversimplifications that make it work. There’s no public opposition, construction is instantaneous, and the game doesn’t simulate non-work trips, among other things.

That doesn’t make it a bad game; it’s a simulation, and still, a surprisingly insightful one.

While playing, I kept thinking back to two of my main references in transit planning (even though neither focuses on subways):

• Human Transit, by Jarrett Walker

• Better Buses, Better Cities, by Steven Higashide

Finally, this wasn’t an exhaustive list of things learned, but if you enjoyed it and want to see more, leave a comment, subscribe, and share, maybe I’ll do a part two.

I’d also love to hear your thoughts on this: whether you agree or disagree, or if there’s something I might have missed.

Project description

Diagrammatic reconstruction of Tanner Creek’s buried course beneath downtown Portland. The drawing explores how urban development, infrastructure, and real estate pressures erased a natural system, replacing it with hidden hydraulic networks.

The exercise focuses on layered representation, sectioned cartography, and narrative visualization as tools for understanding metropolitan systems

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Short description

Arnulfo Aldaco participated as a speaker at the Metropolitan Forum: Challenges and Solutions for Mobility on López Mateos, an academic event hosted by CUCEA (University of Guadalajara). His presentation examined how congestion on López Mateos is not a traffic problem but a structural outcome of car-dependent urban expansion, weak territorial planning, and short-term decision-making.

Key idea

Mobility should be measured by how many people reach their destinations—not by how many cars are moved, requiring institutionalized, long-term planning centered on public transit, equity, and territorial order.

Video

Project Description

This project proposes a metropolitan network of walkable, safe, and shaded pedestrian corridors connecting schools, hospitals, neighborhood centers, and public spaces across the Aguascalientes metropolitan area.

Conceived as a scalable and replicable public-space strategy, the proposal reframes walking as critical urban infrastructure, prioritizing safety, accessibility, and everyday mobility for the most vulnerable users.

The project integrates urban design, mobility planning, and public health objectives, offering measurable targets for reducing traffic fatalities, increasing walking trips, and strengthening local economies.

Short description

Arnulfo Aldaco discusses the mobility crisis of Avenida López Mateos on Canal 44 (Señal Informativa), one of Guadalajara’s main public affairs programs.
In the interview, he argues that congestion on López Mateos is not a short-term traffic issue but the result of decades of car-dependent urban expansion, fragmented planning, and institutional misalignment. He emphasizes the need to shift from moving vehicles to moving people, proposing high-capacity public transit—particularly light rail, as a more effective, equitable, and urban solution than elevated highways or road widening.

Video

*Automatically generated captions available in English

Short Description

Arnulfo Aldaco participates as a guest panelist on Sótanos, Canal 44’s flagship public affairs program, discussing the mobility crisis of Avenida López Mateos in Guadalajara.
In the conversation, he argues that congestion is not a traffic engineering problem but the outcome of decades of car-dependent urban growth, fragmented planning, and weak metropolitan coordination. He critiques elevated highways and road widening as ineffective solutions, advocating instead for high-capacity public transit, institutional reform, and long-term metropolitan planning.

Video

*Dubbed version and captions available in english

Short description

Urban mobility proposal for extending Guadalajara’s Line 2 light rail to Minerva, shared by Libro Negro. The post generated public discussion around station placement, transit capacity, and alternatives to car-oriented expansion.

Short Description

Arnulfo Aldaco participated as a panelist in Spaces and Words, a discussion on the architecture of libraries and bookspaces as cultural infrastructure. The conversation explored how spaces that house books shape public life, knowledge access, and collective memory, positioning libraries and bookstores as active civic spaces rather than passive containers of information.

Key Idea

Libraries and bookspaces are not neutral buildings, they are spatial expressions of how societies value knowledge, access, and public life.

Press Coverage

Reforma - Harán feria especializada en arquitectura (coverage of the Feria del Libro de Arte y Arquitectura, Guadalajara)

Video

Project Description

This project was developed as part of an academic editorial design studio and focuses on the conception and graphic development of a magazine dedicated to architecture, culture, and the city. The exercise explored how editorial structure, typography, layout, and visual hierarchy can be used to frame architectural ideas and long-form cultural content.

The project involved defining the editorial logic, visual language, and layout system for interviews, essays, and visual material. Although the magazine was not published, the work emphasizes editorial thinking, narrative construction, and design as tools for communicating architectural and urban discourse.

View the Magazine

Snapshots

Sound becomes form.
This poster uses onomatopoeia to explore impact, hierarchy, and visual noise, turning typography into a field of forces rather than a neutral carrier of meaning.

Short description

Arnulfo Aldaco was invited to Planta Libre, one of Mexico’s leading architecture podcasts, to discuss the spatial, cultural, and social role of libraries and independent bookstores. The conversation explored bookspaces as places of community, memory, and cultural exchange, as well as the relationship between architecture, reading, and everyday urban life.

Key idea

Libraries and bookstores are not only containers of books, but active cultural spaces that shape how communities read, meet, and think.

Video

Short description

Mural published a feature on Librería Ojos de Perro Azul, highlighting the project as a cultural and emotional space for reading, encounter, and independent publishing in Guadalajara. The article explores the bookstore not only as a retail space, but as a platform for community, literary exchange, and urban cultural life.

Link

Link

Project Description

This project explores the relationship between cultural heritage, public space, and contemporary urban life through the insertion of a mixed-use cultural complex in Guadalajara’s historic center. The proposal combines a public look-out, cultural gallery, and commercial corridor as a strategy to reactivate pedestrian life while reinforcing the identity of the El Carmen neighborhood.

The design is organized as a sequence of terraces that gradually rise toward a public lookout, framing views of the city’s historic landmarks while creating a layered experience of public space. These terraces function simultaneously as circulation, social platforms, and transitional spaces between the street and interior programs.

At ground level, the cultural galleria operates as a pedestrian connector between urban blocks, activating the street with cultural commerce and everyday uses. Upper levels host flexible cultural and exhibition spaces, allowing the project to accommodate multiple activities while maintaining visual and spatial continuity with the surrounding heritage context

.The project emphasizes integration over contrast, using volumetric stepping, proportional façade rhythms, and sectional articulation to respect existing urban scales while introducing new public intensity into the historic fabric.

Floor Plans

Project description

Calle 5 de Mayo runs through Aguascalientes’ historic downtown and primary commercial corridor, one of the city’s most heavily trafficked pedestrian environments. Despite its centrality, the street’s sidewalks were critically undersized, forcing pedestrians to compete for space with vehicles on oversized travel lanes that prioritized car throughput over human safety.

Working alongside civic organizations and architecture students, this project made the case to city government that sidewalk widening was feasible without disrupting vehicular capacity, reframing the street’s cross-section as a question of political will rather than engineering constraint.

Temporal Intervention

As part of International Pedestrian Day 2020, the coalition executed a tactical urbanism intervention: a temporary sidewalk expansion that physically demonstrated how space could be redistributed.

Permanent Intervention by City Government

The evidence proved persuasive. Years later, the city government formalized the proposal, permanently widening one of the sidewalks, a rare instance of temporary civic action translating into lasting infrastructure change.

Project Description

This project emerged from a metropolitan planning workshop led by Pedro B. Ortiz, one of the foremost practitioners in metropolitan governance and polycentric urban strategy. The exercise addressed a structural challenge facing the Bajío metropolitan region: how to leverage existing infrastructure assets, particularly the Guanajuato International Airport and the Puerto Interior inland port, to generate a new urban centrality capable of organizing growth at the regional scale.

The proposal operates on two levels simultaneously. At the metropolitan scale, it introduces a transversal road network connecting the region’s three main corridors, supported by a suburban passenger rail system with three dedicated stations. This connectivity framework treats the airport not as an isolated facility but as the anchor of a new economic district, an aerotropolis organized around logistics, industry, technology, and knowledge production.

At the district scale, the Puerto Interior centrality is re-imagined with a coherent urban grid that integrates a diverse program: a technology incubator, a convention center, an IPN campus satellite, student housing, long-stay hotels, commercial corridors, parks, and a signature transit hub designed as an iconic civic landmark. The proposal also includes a second runway and new air terminal to expand regional air capacity in parallel with ground-level urbanism.

The project demonstrates how strategic infrastructure investment, structured through land value capture and cross-financing, can organize metropolitan growth into compact, livable centralities rather than dispersed sprawl.

Project Description

This project explores the idea of an ecumenical and itinerant sacred space through a single architectural gesture: the hug. Rather than responding to a specific religious doctrine, the chapel is conceived as a universal space for gathering, reflection, and spiritual encounter.

The architecture is defined by two enclosing planes that lean toward each other, creating an interior void that frames human presence as the central element of the project. The spatial compression and opening sequence emphasizes intimacy, fraternity, and collective experience over monumentality.

Materially, the project relies on corten steel as both structure and enclosure, allowing time and weather to become part of the architectural expression. The building is roofless, reinforcing a direct relationship with the sky and the passage of time, while the heavy anchoring elements at the base ensure stability and enable the structure to remain self-supporting in different locations.

Model

Floor plans