As engines of the economy and production, cities are home to the largest masses of people and it is estimated that by 2050, they will be home to 70% of the world's population. In this context, architects are incorporating the articulation of mixed uses in their buildings on a daily basis, seeking to encourage diversification and avoid mono-functionalisation.
From Herzog & de Meuron to Snøhetta, among so many other renowned architectural firms, they are making their projects and works known around the world, focusing on diversity and encouraging the implementation of complementary uses and overlapping activities within a single building. Faced with this strong global trend that involves the concentration of population in urban environments, cities are presented as instruments aimed at improving the quality of life of citizens and the mixture of uses is conceived as a means capable of recognising and enhancing those cities that have been built.
- Related article: Mixed Use Housing: Incorporating Commercial, Cultural and Industrial Programs in a Home
Within the Latin American territory, we will now present 10 mixed-use projects that enter into dialogue with their surrounding environment and integrate cultural, sporting, industrial, commercial and other uses, achieving the coexistence and development of each of the activities as a whole.
MUT (Tobalaba Urban Market) / Territoria
- Location: Chile
- Year: 2022
"Under a new market concept, MUT will offer gastronomy, culture, offices and commerce that are integrated with gardens, squares and sustainable modes of transport. In this way, it seeks to anticipate the way we want to walk, work and live in the city - as an urban campus designed for the world of the future."
"As a way of facilitating social gatherings and revitalising urban life, the more than 20,000 m² of green areas, squares and gardens are integrated with offices, shops and other interior spaces."
Paseo Gigena / ODA
- Location: Argentina
- Under construction
"About the project, it seeks to recycle 80% of the original structure to create a building of almost 15,000 square metres. Aiming to unite the two neighbourhoods previously separated by the old construction site, it will include around 4,000 square metres of public terrace and green open space with pedestrian walkways and a car park for 250 cars."
The Provider Productive Center / Natura Futura Arquitectura
- Location: Ecuador
- Year: 2020
"La Proveedora reflects and proposes strategies of compactness and diversification; revaluing local technique and labour. An intention to read the context and contain a multi-programme that responds sensitively with artisanal materials, sustainable urban scales and dynamic ways of life. A space to provide and shelter within the energetic development of the city."
San José Station / FRPO Rodriguez & Oriol
- Location: Mexico
- Year: 2020
"[...] it emerges as an opportunity to concentrate the dispersed activity around this neighbourhood and create a new cultural, economic and activity pole, both at local and metropolitan level, a social condenser that revitalises the city centre through the superimposition of plans that will host community programmes: parking, offices and coworking, cultural and commercial spaces [...]."
"The result is a highly flexible infrastructure waiting to be occupied by different types of users. An exposed concrete superstructure with a clean and striking geometry relates to the urban environment, rising up and providing views, both near and far."
Control and Operations Center / El Equipo Mazzanti
- Location: Colombia
- Year: 2020
"These CCO centres generally only served as buildings connected to the highways and their operation; without any relationship with the surrounding communities. The proposal included multiplying the use of the CCO control and communications buildings with training classrooms, a product collection centre, a marketplace for the region's products, an open-air cinema and sports fields, turning the CCOs from structures designed for efficiency into places for community building and improving the living conditions of the region's farmers."
Sesc Guarulhos / Dal Pian Arquitetos
- Location: Brazil
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"As a building for public use that brings together culture, sports, education, health, recreation and leisure activities, SESC Guarulhos was conceived as a large, democratic and welcoming space that seeks to encourage and stimulate meetings, coexistence and interaction between people."
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"In this context, the project seeks to emphasise SESC's status as a social communicator and cultural polariser through an architecture oriented not only to the specific solutions of its activities and functions but also to the construction of a more continuous, cohesive and unitary urban scenario."
CAF Headquarters / LAPS Arquitectos
- Location: Uruguay
- Year: 2018
"[...] a building with a mixed programme was required, in a sector of the city full of history and strong urban symbols, on a site on the edge, a meeting point between the "Old City" and the "New City" outside the city walls."
"Offices of the institution, a cinema complex for Cinemateca Uruguaya, the relocation of the historic FunFun bar, car parks and public changing rooms are the main functional areas of the project. The conditioning and recovery of the immediate urban environment are key requirements of the whole intervention. The biggest challenge was therefore to achieve the coexistence of such diverse functional requirements in a single building and urban space."
Sesc Avenida Paulista / Königsberger Vannucchi Arquitetos Associados
- Location: Brazil
- Year: 2018
"The new unit stands out as an extension of the avenue itself, establishing itself as a territory free to be appropriated by the general public. Among its structural characteristics, the concept is developed in the large entrances, in the various living areas - with internal squares and a terrace at the top - and even in the choice of materials, such as the use of non-reflective glass."
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Pavilion M / Landa + Martínez Architects
- Location: Mexico
- Year: 2017
"For decades, Landa Arquitectos has promoted the development of downtown Monterrey. The benefits of this include: densification (which reduces distances and saves resources), the exploitation of existing infrastructure (reducing public administration costs) and the creation of spaces for people from different backgrounds in a segregated city to come together. Pavilion M is the first step in this process. Its construction has triggered new projects for Landa Arquitectos and other firms in the area."
"Landa Arquitectos has been actively involved in the improvement of the public space as well as the pedestrian infrastructure around Pavilion M. A wide pavement now connects the complex to the city's central square."
Sesc 24 de Maio / Paulo Mendes da Rocha + MMBB Arquitetos
- Location: Brazil
- Year: 2017
"We believe that the process of transformation and development of cities like São Paulo adapts slowly to changes in the customs and lifestyles of the societies that build them. The new SESC unit, a complex set of recreational facilities and services, which will occupy the former Mesbla headquarters building, located on the corner of 24 de Maio and Dom José de Barros streets, in downtown São Paulo, is an exemplary problem of transformation into a built urban heritage."
"With these premises, the proposed project aims - in addition to its simple use and the adaptation of the facilities that originally served uses of such a diverse nature to those proposed - to contribute effectively to the desired recovery of such a remarkable area of the city [...]."
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