Loft not soft

I am teaching this semester a 'taller de arquitectura' (a studio) at the Tec (ITESM) on housing design. The project is a housing building on a small lot of 30m x 30m located in the center of the city.

For this reason Luis Aldrete, architect and professor at the Tec, organized a tour for the students on a housing building almost finished and located in the colonia americana not too far from the large avenue of Chapultepec. This four story building containing only 6 duplexes of 120m2 (and a penthouse) for sale targets a specific market of the city: mostly young professionals or retirees. What I found interesting is that this niche market and the architectural solution reveals the movement of reinvestment to the center: of real estate developers and new owners. Indeed the city changed recently the floor area ratio possible for higher density making the urban fabric punctuated by new housing buildings for new urbanites. Of course only a small portion of the population can benefit from those new luxurious walls.