September 27, 2024 Interior Architecture Welcomes JSa Partner as First Female Visiting Professor

Aisha Ballesteros, partner and project director of Latin American-based architecture firm JSa, joins the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s School of Interior Architecture faculty this fall as the school’s first female visiting professor.

She graduated from Ibero-American University with her degree in architecture in 2000, and later received a master’s in 21st century housing from Ibero-American University and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. She joined the JSa team in 2007, and after four years, was appointed partner.

Alongside firm founder and principal Javier Sánchez and partner Benedikt Fahlbusch, Ballesteros has led cultural projects such as the Carlos Monsiváis Personal Library within the José Vasconcelos’ Mexican Library and the Juan Soriano Contemporary Art Museum in the state of Morelos, Mexico.

Her projects have garnered recognitions including the silver medal at the Architecture Biennial of Mexico City (2013) for the Carlos Monsiváis Personal Library; the gold medal at the National Biennial of Mexican Architecture (2020) and the gold medal at the Architecture Biennial of Mexico City (2019), both for the Juan Soriano Contemporary Art Museum.

Through the firm’s projects in Mexico’s gastronomic and hospitality scene, such as Pujol, Criollo, Ticuchi and Salón Rosetta, Ballesteros began incorporating interior architecture into JSa’s practice.

“Aisha’s level of detailed attention elevates the experience of a space,” said Milagros Zingoni, director of the school, who was introduced to Ballesteros and Sánchez, who serves as the college’s 2024 BarberMcMurry Endowed Professor, after visiting his architecture firm, which is housed in a former ice factory in Mexico City.

“Today, ‘The Ice Factory’ is a 100 percent self-sustained space that does not use city infrastructure, not even sewage and water,” said Zingoni. “I saw their firm as a laboratory that is pushing new solutions to today’s problems, and that’s what we do as a school.”

Sánchez was invited to campus in 2023 for a school ONE community lecture on JSa’s approach to architecture and interior architecture, which garnered the City of Knoxville’s attention. That visit led to continued connections between JSa and UT.

“We use the same point of view that we develop the architecture, only it is towards the small details and integrating the interior architecture into the general perspective of the project,” Ballesteros said. “We say we do interior architecture because the decision we make for the interior, impacts the exterior. We change the building or the design to enhance the experience of a space.”

This semester, Ballesteros is teaching in parallel with Sánchez.

Ballesteros will continue the practice of melding the exterior with the interior as she works with second-year interior architecture students on the historic Southern Railway Station, two buildings which the university has acquired to support the college’s plan for expansion. The former railway complex was built in 1903 to serve the economic development of East Tennessee. Acquisition of the station offers the college the opportunity to engage with the Downtown Knoxville community and increase its enrollment size.

Ballesteros and her students have researched the buildings’ history and set intentions they wish a visitor to have while in their future space.

“What we have learned is that our projects can produce hospitality and make the people feel welcomed and have experiences instead of just using the buildings,” she said. “In our practice, we say that we design experiences, not just the spaces, and it’s what we want the students to understand.”

“They have to feel the intentions they want to provoke, then they can start designing the building,” she said. “It is really important to understand what experience we would like to achieve at the end.”

Following Sánchez’s visit to campus, he and Ballesteros began planning an immersive interior architecture trip for fourth-year students earlier this year. Assistant Professor Hojung Kim and former Visiting Professor David Barragán spent a week learning how Mexican designers and artisans are approaching interiors work.

Students were able to see how collaboration with artisans enhances the interior experiences of Ballesteros’ projects.

“We are transferring what we are used to doing in our practice to school,” said Ballesteros. “Javier, and I decided that coming together and having a connection between Mexico and this university makes us really proud and excited for the future collaborations that will come from it.”