045_mexico

Project for a street and landmark tower in Mexico.

Rendering by SBDA (http://sbda.cat/web/)

The project converts into pedestrian an existing street and creates a new housing volume that will act as a landmark.
The street is intended to join two different poles of development (a university area and the cathedral area) and sits next to a green area.

The project starts with the existing parcelling of the street (visible in the facades)

And joins both sides of the street making a curving score.

Over this score the different elements are placed: green areas, sitting areas and water features.

The elements slowly lose their straight lines and go to curvy lines, including the lighting elements. One of those curvy elements grows to become the housing building.

This building shows the street to the city.

The pavement enters into the building plot following the same logic.

The project also creates additional parking spaces under the street.

This way the street becomes like a path in the middle of the forest, with different zones of light and shadow.
The building has a round corner with the balconies pointing to different areas, becoming a landmark without direction.
The street creates outside resting spaces, becoming more a plaza than just a street.
The pavement takes some characters from old examples, changing the scale and use.

The street and the building create a new experience for the street.

The building starts as a circle, with 3 apartments per floor. These apartments rotate to overlook to the three features: the cathedral, the university complex and the green space. This rotation is reinforced by the balconies, which extend the day-zone of the apartments into the exterior.

The different elements of the project are united by a common language, which is adapted to each of the situations.

The day zone overlooks to the features, while the night zone overlooks at 90º. The curvy exterior is solved with straight walls, reinforcing the useful space of the apartment.

The ground floor is another circle, with another centre. The structure goes down like a forest of columns, making difficult to read the configuration of the floors, but following exactly the dividing walls.

The upper floor has a swimming pool and an overlooking deck over the city.

Section showing the different elements.

View to one of the lateral access.

View inside the street overlooking the building.

Overview of the street and building actuation.



More info about this project under the 045_mexico tag
http://raichdelrio.blogspot.ch/search/label/045_mexico

More info about us
www.raichdelrio.com
raichdelrio.blogspot.com

045_Mexico

Presentation panel for 045_mexico competition

More info about this project under the 045_mexico tag
http://raichdelrio.blogspot.ch/search/label/045_mexico

More info about us
www.raichdelrio.com
raichdelrio.blogspot.com

Plaza del Grano

Competition panels of Plaza del Grano

Panel 1

 

Panel 2

More about this project under the "leon" taghttp://raichdelrio.blogspot.com/search/label/_leon

More information about us athttp://www.raichdelrio.com/

Europan 2011

This is the information we handled in for Europan 2011: panels and booklet.
 
As the first panels of Europan as RaichdelRio, and we're not specially proud of them... ;) we found very difficult to sort information.
Maybe the booklet (we work much more in that format) was easyer to read...



Panels:

Booklet:

More about this project under the "europan-2011" tag
http://raichdelrio.blogspot.com/search/label/_europan-2011

More information about us at
http://www.raichdelrio.com/

Plaza del Grano

Our first competition on public space: the refurbish of a plaza with accessibility problems.


La Plaza del Grano is located in Leon, a city in the central part of Spain. This plaza, despite its beautiful realization, actually lacks of accessibility for the disabled and of a good draining system that would allow the water to flow. Besides, the municipality also wanted to provide a clear frame for the bars in the Plaza.


So we started from the actual setup of the plaza.


Then we defined the main circulation paths that would occur to minimize our intervention.


We optimized these paths to fit with the environment.


And gave a subtle definition by giving 2m to the perimeter ones and 1.5m to the ones in the centre.


Finally we located the bars and made clear surfaces to host them.


This paths will host also all the needed infrastructure: drainage, telecommunications... but also a system of geothermic heat that would create clear paths in the hard winters and would acclimatize the outside spaces of the bars to allow using them in winter.


Following this rules we created this plaza with a system of paths that would make the plaza full accessible for everybody, respecting to the maximum the memory, the current state of the plaza: the existing pavement but also the fountain, the cross, the trees...


This way the whole plaza becomes a used space, with the clear contrast between the existing pavement (that remains untouched) and the new pavement (that solves all the problems of the plaza and allows the other to exist without problems). One of the structures of the bars is forgotten in the middle of the plaza creating a lamp or some kind of door (or will maybe become goalposts...)


Here we see the existing pavement covering most of the plaza, the new pavement (a concrete done with the removed stones to give the same appearance), the position of the drainers that will make the plaza clean and the position of the outside dining areas.


A study of the sun shows the new outside dining areas and the plaza in the middle of the street system.


The outside dining area is created by a system of three vertical posts that host two horizontal posts. From the horizontal three different cloths cover jump in different directions to create the shadow space. An additional vertical cloth cuts the wind.


The outside dining areas are always a coordination of two structures, creating a more compact one for the winter, protected from the winds, and a bigger one for the summer, expanding the limits of the concrete space.

An example of one terrace in summer, surrounded by the existing pavement and with a view to the fountain.


Paths in the facade are a slightly wider and always have a geothermic heating system. The dining structures are cloth surfaces floating over the sitting.



A view of the plaza in summer. The plaza remains untouched but all the problems are solved.


A view of the plaza with its surroundings.


More about this project under the "leon" tag
http://raichdelrio.blogspot.com/search/label/_leon

More information about us at
http://www.raichdelrio.com/