Area C Mixcoac / ROW Studio
Architects: ROW Studio - Alvaro Felix Hernandez, Nadia Felix Hernandez, Alfonso Maldonado Ochoa
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Program: Training Room
Client: Coca Cola FEMSA - Grissel Brenda González Aguilar, Training Manager. Gorbea Ramon Chavez, Project Leader
Construction Project Executive: INMOSUR SA de CV - Architect Alvaro Hernandez Cabada
Intervention Grafica: Carlos Ortega Quezadas
Contributors: Cecilio Hernandez, Isaac Cielak, Felix Cañez
Size: 1 20 m2
Work completion date: July 2009
Ceramics: Ariel Rojo
Floral Design: Flora Inc. - Gloria Maldonado
Clothing: FEARS
Photo: John Mark Castaneda
To maintain its leadership in the soft drinks market Coca Cola FEMSA invests significant time and resources in training their employees. This ranges from executive level to dealers and distributors who are the foundation of the production chain from the company to be responsible for ordering, the proper disposition of the goods and to represent a personal level the image of the company before the customers. As part of the development of training programs for human resources management of the company raises the goal of achieving that in addition to formal courses that all employees receive will generate a culture of self-training, for which they face the need to create attractive enough spaces where staff can relax and view courses, textbooks, audio books, software and other resources ATHWAYS during their free time. With this goal in mind, the team led by Brenda Grissel González Aguilar, Training Manager and Ramon Gorbea Chávez, Project Leader, solicit design proposals from several vendors and after a long and arduous process of evaluating the proposed ROW chose Studio because originality and quality.
The first room called Area C (C for Coca Cola, Training, Quality, Commitment and Creativity) is located in Mixcoac Distribution Center in south west of Mexico City. The program includes three individual rooms that can bind to common or separate activities for different uses, a media library, space for snacks, a souvenir shop, facilities for computer equipment and storage areas. There was also a requirement of the project include any picture of the different brands of Coca Cola FEMSA and to strengthen the campaign of company values in space.
Space C Mixcoac has two small rooms with capacity for 8 format designed for dynamic people team, brainstorming, and reading rooms and informal meetings and a large room addition to the above activities can be used for formal courses training, conferences and presentations. The three rooms are arranged concentrically around a fixed piece of furniture where they are concentrated multifunctional uses of media library, snack area and gift shop.
These spaces are confined by a wall that serves as a visual and acoustic barrier isolating the town hall and other activities of the plant. In the external face of the wall is designed as a continuous surface that folds into panels and floors. The walls and ceiling are covered with red epoxy paint while the floor is made of high strength acrylic resin. The outdoor area also serve as a filter and lobby to the rest of the plant can be used for mounting exhibitions and visual elements complement the courses taught at home.
The wall has perforations that allow ventilation and natural lighting inside the rooms. These companies have an inclination of 3 degrees and arise from both the floor and the ceiling just as cutting the folds. From these cuts come a series of slots with the same inclination of three degrees in white that open outwards and in different colors that are close to the interior. These stripes are continued to opposing walls emphasizing the continuity of the surfaces. The colors inside the rooms correspond to the different brands of Coca Cola and when they intersect at some point show the basic color common between the two intersecting paths.
Furniture can be reconfigured to accommodate different activities of the room, thus ensuring maximum flexibility of use.
The exterior graphics are a composition of animal and plant elements in turn form waves that evoke the coca cola logo.
The inner part sought to integrate all the requirements imposed by the client: slogans describing the company values, color harmonies that represent the different lines of branded products, as well as elements that are part of the visual grammar coca-cola (bubbles, bottles, bottle caps, wave and keywords used in various advertising campaigns). Unlike the external graphic, interior can be seen as a series of vignettes, or as a great line chart.
The interior walls of the chambers are coated with an anti-graffiti finish which allows use as a blackboard and encapsulates graphics vinyls protecting them from external damage.
Area C is the first room Mixcoac program plans to be implemented in all plants and distribution centers Coca Cola FEMSA in Mexico. All rooms will have a unique design and each inviting a different artist or designer to create graphic interventions in the spaces.
