GA Corporate Building / Architecture in Motion
Architect: Architecture in Motion - Eduardo Micha M, Fabio Correa M
Location: Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
Type: Commercial
Built Surface: 1220.00 mt2
Year: 2008
Photo: Rafael Gamo
The Corporate GA is a project located in Ciudad Juarez, on a site of 3,000 m2, which was due to meet corporate requirements, which is the construction of social housing in the area stronger.
The architectural program was defined in the following areas:
- Sales area (customer care) social interest
- finance area
- Apartment rental
- Address
Context
The urban context in which the property is located is mixed, as there are residential complexes, shops, hospitals, hotels and vacant lots, which is dominated by buildings of one and three levels high, although there are isolated buildings up to seven levels . There is no predominant architectural style in the area and there are buildings of historical consideration.
Ciudad Juarez is the fourth largest city in Mexico, with 2 million inhabitants and is the natural border of El Paso, Texas, with a population of one million inhabitants. The economic profile of the population corresponds to the middle and lower, with the maquiladora industry the main employer of the population. For location, the climate is desert and extreme, with temperatures ranging from -15 ° C, with sporadic rain and snow up to 45 ° C.
Design Process
For the planning of the building as a starting point we take the game of Jenga, which is based on the construction of objects from blocks of equal size. With this in mind, the building would reflect the identity of the construction company, offering at the same time, a dynamic and jovial.
For the development of the whole, it was necessary to build five levels with such modules to cover a total of 1'250 m2. Cada nivel debería de tener 250 m2 aproximados, sin embargo al otorgarles función sufrieron modificaciones en tamaño ya su vez en forma. Hence the first level is the smallest module because depending on the least area is required is access to the disabled, floor managers and income, also allows us to make the movement more fluid to levels 4 and 5.
The level of wood inside the home to level 2 and 3, operating line at the customer service and sales therefore represent them with the same material, and inside they are united as a single space on two levels; ie the visual connection between them is given by a large central hole which is crossed by the bucket elevator, which lets you see the floor 2 to 3 and vice versa. This connection is functionally adequate for optimum performance of the tasks performed there. Both levels receive a flow of about a hundred customers a day, and have a direct connection to the side of the street, by a floating staircase manner of language, since 90% of customers arrive by public transport. This allows the building to vent quickly and smoothly.
The fourth level is a proposed module and recover financially to absorb a significant amount of investment, it is flexible, so that can be divided into one, two, three or four parts, each with bathroom facilities and pipelines, for decided to do this same light and transparent, an H-shaped glass, which can generate four terraces in each of the faces of the building, operating them as social and recreational areas. Transparency also allows us to have 360 º views of the adjacent building without obstructing the view, although the facade is made entirely of glass, placed umbrellas preventing entry of the sun, preventing the cooling system of the same works at 100% capacity, making the building is not so hot.
The last level on the fifth floor, rests hierarchically as one particular form, has four large terraces, the top slab of the building is an inverted dome with three basic purposes: 1) rainwater harvesting, 2) that the building had to have an ending (which sounds obvious but not always), to be understood that correctly then the building that is the proportion and not the same one or two floors, and 3) to be the top-slab space warmer than the other levels, it was decided to give it more height and reach have warm air farther from the user, which also justifies that there is place the general direction, giving more hierarchy on other levels.
Structure and materials
The game of jenga illustrates the basic concept of modular, yet we also showed that removing the lower parts of the volume, could even hold a large volume, balancing the space occupied by voids. Thus we think that we wanted a strong structure, but impressive turn is seen floating, like when a tree with a slender trunk and a large leafy crown where the branches grow and spread of the trunk several feet. This principle was applied to tree building.
To achieve this we work levels cantilever, which is why the building structurally spine works as a central support which actually are four reinforced concrete columns, supporting steel girders transversely, waging clear up to 8 meters in cantilever, girder slabs were constructed with polystyrene moldings, making lighten the weight of each level. The foundation of these four is based backbones friction pile foundation and a box that does not allow the rolling of the building as there are wind gusts of up to one hundred km / h.
