Some kids watch a professional soccer game and dream of becoming a pro athlete when they grow up. Felipe Morales wanted to build the stadiums that make the game possible. He also dreamed of hospitals, highways, and major urban infrastructure.
“Since I was a kid, I wanted to build big things,” Morales said. “I was good at drawing and I just wanted to know how to build it.”
He chased that dream through his teen years and beyond. After high school in Mexico City, he earned a degree in civil engineering at Instituto Tecnológico de La Paz in Baja California Sur. Then he went to work in the commercial sector, specializing in steel and concrete. The two materials, which form the backbone of conventional engineering in urban development, are among the top five most significant industrial sources of climate-warming carbon dioxide in the world, according to a 2022 United Nations report.
Morales’ conventional career reached a peak when he designed an artfully paved road spanning the 30 kilometers of rugged desert mountains between the city of La Paz and a beloved beach called El Saltito on the east coast of the peninsula. He also helped build a substation for the Comisión Federal de Electricidad. The state-owned utility controls most of Mexico’s energy grid, which remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels.
“I became a master at mainstream construction. It’s in my skin and bones,” Morales said. His heart and conscience on the other hand? They felt compromised.
The ethical dilemma he faced echoes a sentiment that many climate-conscious citizens feel across the globe: How is my career or consumption in a global economy perpetuating environmental harm?
That question eventually would lead Morales to make a major change.
Are you part of the problem?
Living in La Paz, the capital city of Baja California Sur, places Morales within a growing epicenter for luxury tourism, relocating expats, and development.
Multiple reports have ranked the nearby cities of Los Cabos as the fastest-growing destination in Mexico, touting miles of pristine coastline abutting “the world’s aquarium,” as ocean explorer and conservationist Jacques Cousteau described the Gulf of California.
Unchecked development and large-scale infrastructure have already begun to threaten local flora and fauna, dune systems, and desert landscapes. The ecosystems, like many people living in Mexico’s coastal regions, are also grappling with a rise in hurricane activity, sea levels, ocean temperatures, pollution, and other human-induced climate effects.
As Morales’ career advanced, he felt haunted by the damage in the wake of conventional construction, especially the contributions of the fossil-fuel dependent steel and concrete industries.
“Yes, my dream came true, and I’m glad for that,” he said. “But I asked myself: ‘Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?’”
Building a sustainable way
The hard answers emerged with a series of life changes.
Morales pursued a master’s degree in social sciences, specializing in sustainable development and globalization. He also cofounded a beach cleanup nonprofit, ConCiencia Mexico, that lasted more than a decade.
The effort sparked community mindfulness toward the natural world, and, by his own admission, some “greenwashing” for Morales’ conscience while he remained in conventional construction.
“I started to feel bad about myself,” he said.
Finally, he made a career pivot in 2011. Sustainability and climate-resilience are now cornerstones of his design and building business, Conscious Construction and Design.
Over the course of several years, Morales found that transitioning toward a more mindful career was possible.
“I can fill my pockets and be part of the problem, but I don’t want to. So I shifted,” he said. “It was hard, but I’m more happy for sure.”
Building the business from scratch meant finding laborers and clients who are interested in and committed to alternatives. His commitment to climate-resilient construction also demanded unique, custom solutions.
Committing to bio construction
The Baja California Sur resident has spent more than a decade immersed in bioclimatic design and bio construction for private homes and commercial projects, including small resorts.
This design and construction philosophy emphasizes local setting and climate as fundamental factors driving project specifications. Housing solutions in the sunny and arid desert of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, for example, differ from what would be suitable in southeastern Mexico’s wet and tropical regions along the Gulf of Mexico.
Morales’ holistic framework tailors eco-technologies toward seven basic human needs: Water, food, energy, housing, waste, mobility, and production. Customized solutions for projects can include orchard backyards, solar panels, water harvesting, and superadobe – a wall-building material made mostly of local soil, known for its longevity and earthquake resilience.
Water harvesting is especially relevant across Mexico, where the climate crisis is rapidly depleting water supplies in both urban and rural settings. Morales can reclaim the majority of a household’s greywater by redirecting sink and laundry drains into natural filtration systems and landscaping elements.
He also prefers stone foundations and walls made of sacks filled with soil, lime, and a fraction of the cement used in typical blockwork and rebar construction.
Combining old and new
Fernanda Rabanal opted for all the sustainable elements above when she contracted Morales three years ago to build in El Sargento, Baja California Sur.
She was especially inspired by the superadobe walls as an alternative to water-intensive cement.
“We know that our resources are not infinite,” Rabanal said of her decision to build after 20 years renting in La Paz. “I wanted a house that’s different.”
To her, bioclimatic design strikes an ideal balance between modern innovation and tradition – such as returning to locally sourced adobe, which reminds Rabanal of the homes of her youth growing up in Aguas Calientes.
“It is actually a combined technology. Yes it takes parts of old things, but also current things,” she said.
Installing solar on the roof and tapping into a nearby well kept her fully off-grid, independent from the federal energy utility. Her home, she said, has already endured two hurricanes with no damage.
The energy independence also kept her lights on during multiple power outages.
Mindful consumption
While designing a new building from scratch presents endless possibilities, Morales’ goal is for anyone in any living situation to pursue sustainability in at least one or two areas, considering what is reasonable for their social and economic circumstances.
“You can spread the word with just one change,” he said.
The easiest category for most people to implement sustainability is energy use. This even applies to renters, who can take actions like replacing all lights with LED bulbs. Morales also teaches people how to install a single solar panel that can power just one appliance or home feature and expand gradually.
That’s what Rabanal did, beginning with enough power for her refrigerator and computer in her desert home. Then she added capacity for air conditioning, more lights, and other comforts as her budget allowed.
This method made her much more mindful about her behaviors and excessive energy consumption.
Alternatives for conventional construction
In Morales’ view, green and climate-resilient construction remains niche and countercultural in Mexico.
One contributing factor is that the supply chain of materials and methodology feeding the construction industry remains steeped in unsustainable practices. Mainstream skill sets and labor expertise, such as cement blockwork, also need to change, he said.
This transition, Morales said, demands a delicate balance: Push for change in the mainstream, but not so fast that the market collapses. “We aren’t talking about the Roman Empire. The system is the whole Earth,” Morales said.
On a more local level, building codes and policies pose a significant hurdle for climate-resilient and sustainable construction. That means many of Morales’ custom projects today are “out of the box,” as he said, or off-the-grid. In his city of La Paz, for example, the federal utility restricts homeowners or businesses from installing solar panels if they’re connected to public electricity.
He’s currently hatching an idea to change such policies and codes. It would involve workshop gatherings that invite ecological-minded builders and researchers alongside local politicians and other decision-makers.
In that space, all the stakeholders can share and witness the possibilities of sustainable design and development and align priorities. He’s also completing a Ph.D. in sustainability, with the hope of driving bigger changes on the systemic level.
Change like popcorn
One-off projects like Rabanal’s home are having a local ripple effect. Or, as Morales likes to call it: a popcorn effect.
During construction in El Sargento, Rabanal’s neighbors who were planning to build spotted the unique superadobe walls going up and stopped to ask questions. That led to an introduction to Morales, who has now completed a bioclimatic home for them just down the road from Rabanal.
“The change is like popcorn,” Morales said. Each kernel, or home, can offer hope and inspire a greener way of living. This fits into a mantra-like core value guiding the second half Morales’ career as a builder: Life preserves life.
“I really feel this. I’m trying to preserve life,” Morales said.
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