O Dos Vasconcelos – Hotel Habita Monterrey / Landa + Martínez Arquitectos

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Text description provided by the architects. O Dos Vasconcelos is a mixed-use complex organized around a central, open-air public space with a circular plan. The parking area, the apartments and commercial spaces, and the hotel volume are all visible from the entrance level. The relation between the underground and the aboveground spaces, and the concentration of different functions in carefully crafted pieces, lends the complex a mechanical character --appropriate for a predominantly industrial city-- which reminiscent of the early work of James Stirling.

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The first two floors above street level are occupied by commercial spaces. Above them are the one and two-storey apartments. The organization of the apartments and their circulations draws on the housing buildings by Mario Pani, with the interior corridors of Le Corbusier transformed into naturally ventilated and illuminated balconies.

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The hotel is an independent element with an ovoid plan. Its vertical circulations and services are concentrated on two solid concrete cores that support free-spanning floors. The floors house a cross-ventilated restaurant and hotel rooms, served by central corridors. The hotel volume also includes a roof-top terrace, with spectacular views of the city of Monterrey and the surrounding mountains. The terrace has two moon-shaped swimming pools, on the north and south sides of the plan, and is covered by a thin slab of concrete, suspended from steel cables.

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The hotel's reception is located on the ground level. It is a freestanding concrete and glass box. 

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The open space around this box links the street and the interior public space of O Dos Vasconcelos and thus serves as an entrance to the rest of the complex. The hotel is both the public face of the building and its doorway