A short walk down a ramshackle alley typical of Beijing’s hutong neighborhoods leads to a pivoting steel door deeply recessed between a pair of gray-brick buildings.

In presenting their work, a number of speakers at the ninth Mundaneum conference on architecture charted personal journeys of finding their professional voices. These tales included moments of doubt and self-criticism, along with humor and discovery.

When Michel Rojkind calls Highpark “extroverted,” you might think, “It takes one to know one.” An exuberant character, the Mexico City–based architect is rarely at a loss for words or enthusiasm. His new housing project in Monterrey, a major industrial and business center in northeast Mexico, shares his outgoing personality—engaging its urban context and striking an animated profile on the street. 

Beauty may be skin-deep, but David Jameson's design for the offices of a dermatologist and a plastic surgeon reaches beneath the surface, peeling back layers of intrigue. Inspired by the structure of a tree'with its rough bark on the outside and smoother rings closer to the core' the Washington, D.C.'based architect organized the 3,770-square-foot facility as a progression of spaces wrapped in increasingly refined materials.