AE GAYARANDA is a Mexico City-based urban design and architecture studio. Founded in 2003, our goal is to produce final designs that emphasize the integration of architecture with the urban and natural environment. We are an interdisciplinary team whose strength lies in analyzing the needs of our clients and optimizing the use of available resources.

Environmental, social, cultural and economic sustainability are central to everything we do. We aim to use architecture to address common issues and benefit society at large, an approach that we have applied to projects for the development of the tourism industry and the economy, the design of master plans on an urban scale, mixed-use buildings, sustainable schools, hospitals, hotels, housing complexes and residential homes.

Our mission is to leave our clients tangible legacies, and bring people, cultures, ideas and disciplines together by creating meaningful, life-changing projects.

Ana Elena studied Architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico and has a Master’s from the UPC in Spain. She also studied at La Sorbonne in France and at MIT edX and Harvard edX. She was a member of the Carmen Pinós team in Barcelona and the Enrique Norten team in Mexico.

In 2003, she founded AE GAYARANDA Arquitectura y Diseño Urbano S.C. in Mexico City.

Ana Elena and her team have designed a wide range of hotel, corporate, residential, mixed-use and housing projects, and are considered experts in the design of hospitals and healthcare centers. The studio undertakes urban and architectural design master planning to foster economic growth by promoting tourism in established tourism centers.

In 2013, with the support of the Mexican embassy in Singapore, ProMéxico, the local Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Center for Livable Cities (CLC), Ana Elena conducted field research in Singapore, which she then used to draw up a sustainable social and urban development model known as ECOBARRIO: environmental awareness + social awareness.

In 2014, in her capacity as a UN-Habitat consultant, she and her studio compiled the Environmental Psychology chapter of Centros de Justicia para las Mujeres: Lineamientos Arquitectónicos (Justice Centers for Women: Architectural Guidelines), which describes how to use architectural design to positively impact the psychological state of women living in conditions of vulnerability.

Infrastructure projects include a large railway station project that was selected as a finalist in the World Architecture Awards 2021 .

She is a full member of the Mexico City College of Architects.