Location: Lazaro Cardenas, Jalisco, Mexico Architects: AD 11 Grupo de Arquitectura y Diseño / Salvador Macías, Francisco Gutierrez Collaborators: Israel Melo (arq), Belen Aldapa (arq), Margarita Peredo (arq), Alejandra Fernandez (arq), Almendra Magaña (arq), Manuel Rivera (ing), Javier Ruiz (arq), Lou Peresandi (dis), Alfredo Barb (dis). Client: KP Alazraki Built area: 2280 sqm Photos: Mito Covarrubias
The project for the advertising agency Alazraki KP consists of two buildings constructed at different stages. The first one was conceived as a radical intervention of an existing building by transforming its use and image, while respecting the existing structure. The building is located facing a high speed road that contains a central sidewalk lined with tall trees. Thus the project proposes a new red body housing the lobby that forms a portico framing the ‘green’ area and that folds itself to announce the agency’s logo.
A pre-existing staircase of the first building that served as emergency exit was used in the second stage as a connector between the first project and the new building. This connector functions as a red ‘kneecap’ that establishes the levels of the new building.
This new addition was designed as an extension that would integrate the rest of the agency with a printing area, a small auditorium, new creative working spaces and a penthouse. The shape of the building departs from inserting a box inside another separating the different uses that the program required. The natural light and open plan were the priority criteria for project design: the open plan allows freedom in the use of the space and the natural light enclosure release. In order to gain zenith’s light, slabs shrink themselves releasing the surrounding walls.
