New York firm SO-IL has envisioned a six-storey, concrete apartment building for León, Mexico, which is meant to offer an alternative solution for the country's low-cost housing shortage.
The project, called Las Americas, was conceived for central León, a fast-growing city in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.
Designed by the Brooklyn-based firm SO-IL, the project is meant to offer affordable housing solutions for León and beyond. Specifically, it promotes infilling urban sites rather than building new developments on the city's outskirts, where services are limited.

For years, the government focused on creating suburbs with affordable, cookie-cutter houses. Many of these developments have since turned into slums, as reported by the LA Times. "The city (León) is at a critical point in its growth to establish a new solution to the nation's housing crisis," the firm said in a project description. "How can we transform Mexican urbanisation from suburban banality to dense, thriving communities in the hearts of cities""
SO-IL worked with a local housing agency, the Instituto Municipal de Vivienda de León (IMUVI), to develop a prototype scheme in which affordable homes are stacked atop each other, which it describes as "intra-urban vertical housing". Construction is slated to begin this year.

"The project proposes high-density, sustainable, social housing that supports social mobility with opportunities in a thriving urban cen...