Project Info
Architects: GoKo
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Architect In Charge: Jose Martín González M., Christopher Koehn M.
Project Manager: Isaac Guzmán R.
Area: 1,560 sqm
Year: 2012
Photographs: Aki Itami R.
Construction Manager: Carlos Ascensión L.
Landscape Design: Cénica / Florever
Textile Design: Isabel Maldonado
Introduction
In one of the main entrances to Mexico City we found a dilapidated building that needed a new life. Located in an area of traffic chaos and visual saturation, the intervention had to be simple, honest and discreet to stand out in that environment. We cleaned the building by removing all unnecessary items accumulated over the years and used a variety of materials as layers, as ‘veils’ to protect and create appropriate scenarios for each space and function.
Details
The Aluzinc coating of passive solar control on the facade helped us inside with the ideal indirect natural lighting for work and to get the right temperature. This lowered the artificial lighting use and avoided climate control providing significant energy savings.The gray and white tones used on the outside, managed to lose the volume in the gray sky of the city generating a break in the saturated street. You enter the building through a white corridor that acts as a filter. This corridor ends in a five-story central atrium that serves as the patio where the offices are lit by zenital daylight. Here we find a second, translucent veil of fifteen- meters high curtains made of recycled material. This allows the passage of natural light to the office, but at the same time functions as visual and acoustic barrier between public and private areas. The view from this hall is framed by ending either up to the sky or to a second outdoor patio, contained by a third green curtain
This design strategy enabled us to reduce labor costs and time as well as to generate significant, daily energy savings for the building, while optimal spaces were provided for working where greater interaction and creativity were possible.
