Hasta La Ideas

American architects Richard Meier & Partners have unveiled designs for a 34-storey tower in Mexico City.

Glazed curtain walls will cloak each elevation of the Mitikah Office Tower and will be subtly faceted on the south and east faces.

A rooftop restaurant and bar are to occupy the top floor of the tower, while a domed conference room and surrounding garden will be located on floor number 19.

The building was designed as part of a wider masterplan by American firm Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and is scheduled to complete in 2014.

Other projects by Richard Meier that we’ve featured on Dezeen include an extension to a California gallery and a Jewish candle-holder – see them all here.

Here’s the full press release from Richard Meier & Partners:

Richard Meier & Partners Designs New Tower in Mexico City

New York, January 16, 2012 – The third project designed by Richard Meier & Partners in Mexico – is revealed today. The new Mitikah Office Tower will be a state-of-the-art building in the Delegacion Benito Juarez in Mexico City.

Mitikah Office Tower will be part of a mixed use master plan designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and developed by IDEURBAN/IDCity from Mexico. The scheme consists of commercial space, low-rise residential buildings, and a hotel and residential tower. Located at the southwest corner of the master plan, the tower offers an extraordinary opportunity to develop an architecture that mediates between the commercial core and the nearby residential community. Mitikah Office Tower will be the visual transition between the Av. Rio Churubusco, an elevated highway, and the pedestrian boulevard of the retail plaza.

Design Partner-in-charge Bernhard Karpf comments: “Mexico City has always been among the most important cultural and commercial centers in Latin America. The new tower will undoubtly contribute visual significance to the skyline of the city and to the neighborhood. The design is inspired by a modern interpretation of Aztec forms.”

The architectural massing of the new building combines a slender and elegant 34-story tower that rises above a transparent and translucent building base. The building lobby has been carefully positioned to be visible from all approaches to the site, and it anchors the building to the exposed retail plaza and to the adjacent commercial space.

A six-story underground garage provides joint parking not only for the building but for the other components of the master plan. The design of the office tower with its refined formal vocabulary reflects the distinct orientation of the site while addressing requirements of sustainability, maximum efficiency and flexibility. The South and East facades of the tower are composed of a continuous high-performance curtain wall modulated by subtle folds and reveals that create a memorable sculptural expression.

The North and West elevations are composed by a curtain wall system with modular and orthogonal expressions that reference the proportions of the surrounding context. A sky garden with an integrated conference pavilion on the 19th floor, and a restaurant and sky-bar on the 34th floor provide unique destinations for the mix-use development.

All facades of the building boast floor-to-ceiling glass walls with unparalleled views of downtown Mexico City, the surrounding mountains and the central valley. The selection of an efficient curtain wall system with clear and fritted Low-E glass maximizes the use of natural daylight throughout the office building while reducing the solar energy intake. The interplay of natural light and shadow animates the interior office space giving its occupants a quality that changes throughout the day. Mitikah Office Tower is expected to be LEED-certified and to be completed in 2014.