San Pedro Garza Garcia is a center of economic progress and of
important entrepreneur culture in the state of Nuevo Leon. Its privileged
geographical location has provided its habitants with the necessary resources
for maintaining their quality of life.
The project is located in the original part of the Colonia del
Valle, a prestigious neighborhood of this city with a strong cultural identity,
that provide it with the appropriate social flow and contextual quality of any
important venue for public meeting. Also known as Centrito Valle, it houses
architectural patterns that have in common a modernist stroke, large
circulations, abundant open areas, and an overall unity in material and
architectural elements, where the use of brick is a common denominator.
Designed mostly as a residential neighborhood, the recent
introduction of the concept of brand and author has created a programmatic
tension that displaced residential atmosphere in favor of a growing commercial
demand. This inadvertent appropriation is perceived as a disorganized and
desolate space, where project and context fail in any conceptual unity,
deteriorating the neighborhood’s original conditions. Most projects created
and/or restored here, are made up of functional plans that forget their
spatial-temporal relationship in favor of their economic success.
This project works at the disposal of its context, infiltrating
it volumetrically and chromatically, making its iconographic purpose
predictable and clear, and satisfying its own programmatic needs through a
volumetric composition that rhythmically concentrates it visual force, adapting
to the change of position of the observer, considering its trajectory and
speed, to create scenes through their
perfectly symmetrical dual display.
Its location, construction characteristics, and North-South
orientation supply it with the accurate control of lighting, ventilation, solar
protection, thermal insulation, visual impact, auditory impact, and other
issues of operation and maintenance. The project is resolved in three levels, a
natural lighted basement that functions as both parking and storage; a ground
level elevated 6 feet to guarantee uninterrupted visual contact from street
level; and a mezzanine that takes advantage of its elevated position to create
an open and high-roofed space. Two perimeter circulations connect ground floor
and mezzanine, pursuing to function as psychological breaks between floors by
highlighting the qualities of each one separately. The building is mostly transparent
front to back, taking full advantage of the created views, natural lighting,
and maintaining its commitment to its commercial nature. There are no private
paces here, only service, commercial space, and windows.