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Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. Liverpool in Juarez, Mexico by HierveAugust 23rd, 2011 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: Hierve The project involves the refurbishment of a former office building built in 1981, to be converted into a residential building with 23 apartments. It is worth saying that this building was considerably damaged during the 1985 earthquake. The whole building leaned itself towards the street by 1.20 meters, so the building had a big structural intervention that straightened it to its former position and reinforced the foundations heavily so to never have a problem again.  Image Courtesy Fernando Cordero
 Image Courtesy Fernando Cordero
 Image Courtesy Fernando Cordero This building is located in the Juarez district, within a historic protected area. We first developed a full project that at the end of the process (one year and a half) was rejected by the local authorities. They argued that because of the scale of the building (the only building with 15 floor plans in the area), we should be more considerate with the surroundings.  Image Courtesy Fernando Cordero We were asked by our client to redesign the proposal, so we went to the drawing board again and ended up with a proposal that considered a visual continuum at street level with the adjacent buildings, emphasizing the building in a horizontal way and connecting it visually with its surroundings by the use of color.  Image Courtesy Fernando Cordero The original structure of the building was left virtually intact. The first four levels of the building provide parking area and the rest of the levels house apartments of different sizes (between 137 and 189 m2), some of which have private terraces. The strategy was to leave the service areas in the heart of the apartments (kitchen, laundry and bathrooms), so as to allow all living areas to be as big and airy as possible and to have views of the city.  Image Courtesy Fernando Cordero We designed a pierced steel facade in the main and rear facades of the building. This element was inspired by the traditional mexican handcraft of papel picado, where a piece of paper is chopped leaving holes in form of flowers, animals, people, etc.  Image Courtesy Fernando Cordero The function of this element is to hide the old facade, to give as much views as possible to each apartment, to create an attractive element that would help with the marketing issues and to create a certain order and beauty within the chaotic urban context.  Sketch Plan We worked carefully in the design of each of the steel plates, with reference to the original design of a papel picado bought in the market of San Angel. The texture provided by the metal facade contrasts with the application of a reddish stucco in the rest of the building, which seeks to integrate (with a low budget) the building with its urban context, especially with their roofs treated with waterproof red paint, which is one of the most common urban landscapes found in Mexico City.  Sketch Plan  Sketch Plan  Plan o1  Plan 03  Plan 05
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Categories: Apartments, Building, Residential |
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