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An aluminium canopy speckled with triangular perforations shelters the space between old and new buildings at Mexico‘s National Film Archive and Film Institute, recently renovated by Rojkind Arquitectos (+ slideshow).

Mexican firm Rojkind Arquitectos was tasked with upgrading the existing facilities of the campus in Xoco, south of Mexico City, as well as adding extra cinema screens, an outdoor amphitheatre and additional storage vaults for the film archive.

Rebranded as Cineteca Nacional Siglo XXI, the complex is used a cut-through from a local metro station, which prompted the architects to create a sheltered space at the centre of the campus that functions as both a public gathering area and a lobby for the buildings.

“We didn’t want it to feel like you’re in the lobby of a commercial cinema, we wanted it to feel more like a university campus, with everything floating in a park” said studio founder Michel Rojkind.

The aluminium-clad canopy curves downwards to form the facade of a pair of new buildings. These accommodate four extra screening rooms, bringing the overall total up to ten, and create a two-storey zone for shops, cafes and seating areas.

“The added amenities have turned the campus into a favourite gathering space not only for moviegoers but also for Xoco residents and workers who have appropriated the space as if it were their backyard,” said the design team.

Two archive vaults were added to the existing four, making room for 50,000 extra reels of film, and a museum dedicated to the history of Latin American cinema was constructed.

Car parking areas previously dotted  around the campus have been consolidated into a single six-storey building, creating space for planted landscaping and the new 750-seat amphitheatre.

Photography is by Paul Rivera, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s a project description from Rojkind Arquitectos:

Cineteca Nacional Siglo XXI

Located in the southern quadrant of Mexico City, the National Film Archive and Film Institute of Mexico is home to the most important film heritage of Latin America. Its campus occupied an underutilised site of considerable dimensions within the strangled town of Xoco. This historic town, once surrounded by agricultural land, now sits deep within the urban sprawl and faces extinction due to economic and political pressures from developers and municipal authorities which covet its privileged location.

The existing complex dated from 1982, when a fire destroyed part of the campus and most of its archive, and was a “temporary” facility never well suited for its purpose. Additionally, thousands of people cross the grounds daily as they walked to and from one of the city’s nearby metro station, Estación Metro Coyoacan.

Facing total renewal, Cineteca’s original project brief included the expansion and renovation of the existing complex incorporating additional vault space and four more screening rooms. But in response to the immediate urban condition, additional restorative work needed to be done to reclaim part of the site as public space, give relief to the dense new-development – filled surroundings of Xoco and accommodate the constant flow of pedestrians and casual visitors.

First, surface parking was consolidated into a six-storey structure freeing 40% of the site. Then the pedestrian friendly “back entrance”, located across the street from the historic town’s cemetery, was reactivated – 70% of Cineteca patrons use public transportation and arrive by foot. The reclaimed space now houses the new program organised along two axes, one perpendicular to the street of Real Mayorazgo becoming the main pedestrian entrance and the other perpendicular to Av. México-Coyoacán for both car and pedestrian access.

The axes intersection became a new 80m x 40m public plaza sheltered from the weather by a hovering canopy connecting the existing complex with the new screening rooms. Clad in composite aluminium panels, with varied size triangular perforations, the roof structure wraps around the new screening rooms and becomes their facade. The sheltered space functions as the foyer for the old and new screening rooms and can accommodate additional program options such as concerts, theatre, exhibitions, etc.

An outdoor amphitheatre, extensive landscaping and new retail spaces were added to the original program expanding the possibilities for social and cultural interaction and exchanges, and giving the complex a university campus feel.

The new screening rooms seat 180 each and the existing screening rooms were updated with current technology. Overall the complex can now seat 2,495 visitors in indoor theatres. The outdoor amphitheatre has a 750-person capacity. Two new film vaults were also added to the site, increasing Cineteca’s archive capacity by 50,000 reels of film. Parking capacity was also increased by 25% to a total of 528 cars.

The thousands of people that use the grounds everyday now find welcoming unrestricted public space: commuters still walk back and forth across the campus in the morning and evening, medical staff from a nearby hospital stop by to eat their lunches at noon, students hang out at the park in the afternoon, and moviegoers attend free outdoor events in the evening. The added amenities have turned the campus into a favourite gathering space not only for moviegoers but also for Xoco residents and workers who have appropriated the space as if it were their backyard.

Architectural project: Rojkind Arquitectos
Interior design: Alberto Villareal Bello, Esrawe Studio
Structural engineer: CTC Ingenieros
Roof structure engineer: Studio NYL
MEP: IPDS
Landscape consultant: Ambiente Arquitectos
A/V consultant: Auerbach Pollock Friedlander
Acoustical consultant: Seamonk
Lighting consultant: Ideas y Proyectos en Luz
Graphic design: Citrico + Welcome Branding

Program: Cultural
Construction Area: 49,000 m2
Location: Mexico City

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National Film Archive and Film Institute appeared first on Dezeen.

Mexican architect Frida Escobedo has transformed the former home and studio of painter David Alfaro Siqueiros into a public gallery and encased the entire complex behind a triangulated concrete lattice (+ slideshow).

Young architect Frida Escobeda reworked the complex built in the 1960s by late artist and political activist Siqueiros as a mural painting workshop, creating an art gallery and artists’ residence in the small Mexican city of Cuernavaca.

A wall of perforated concrete blocks was build around the perimeter of the La Tallera de Siqueiros complex, forming an enclosure around the buildings that groups them together but also allows light to filter through.

Two large murals painted by Siqueiros were moved from their original positions around a private courtyard to frame a new entranceway – a move that Escobeda says was key in opening the complex up to the public.

“Rotating the murals ignites the symbolic elements of the facade’s architectural syntax, altering the typical relationship between gallery and visitor,” she said.

In their new positions, the murals provide a framework for the cafe and bookshop, but also help to separate the gallery building from the old house, which now functions as a base for artists in residence.

Siqueiros’s former workshop remains largely unchanged but had been coated with white paint to create a neutral gallery space. Extensions have been built from concrete, with an exposed surface that reveals the markings of its timber formwork.

La Tallera de Siqueiros was one of 14 architecture projects shortlisted for Designs of the Year 2014 earlier this week.

Photography is by Rafael Gamo.

Here’s a project description from Frida Escobedo:

La Tallera

La Tallera Siqueiros generates a relationship that reconciles a museum and a muralist’s workshop with the surrounding area by way of two simple strokes: opening the museum courtyard onto an adjacent plaza and rotating a series of murals from their original position. The space itself was built in 1965 and became the house and studio of the muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros during the final years of his life.

La Tallera is “an idea Diego Rivera and I came up with in the 1920s to create a real muralist workshop where new techniques in paint, materials, geometry, perspective and so on would be taught”. This is how Siqueiros himself defined this workplace, now a museum, workshop and artist’s residency program focused on art production and criticism. By opening up the courtyard, the museum yields a space for shared activity, while also appropriating the plaza.

The murals, originally intended for the outside area, now have a dual role: firstly, as a visual and programmatic link with the plaza by encompassing the public areas of the museum (café, bookshop and store) and secondly as a wall/program that separates the artist’s residence from the museum and workshop.

Rotating the murals ignites the symbolic elements of the facade’s architectural syntax, altering the typical relationship between gallery and visitor. Like the exterior, the gallery space, from both an exhibition design and artistic perspective, though unfolding, generates new relationships and spatial connections.

The distribution of these spaces and the interplay of planes – in murals and walls among others – is revealed in crossing a perimeter lattice that demarcates the urban surroundings – a single horizontal sculptural piece that contains and displays Siqueiros’ work.

Architect: Frida Escobedo
Design team: Frida Escobedo, Rodolfo Díaz Cervantes, Adrian Moreau, Adiranne Montemayor, Daniela Barrera, Fernando Cabrera, Luis Arturo García Castro
Client: Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros – La Tallera
Type: Public building / Museum Adaptation

Consulting: BulAu (Carlos Coronel / Hector de la Peña)
Building contractor: Francisco Alvarez Uribe (1st phase), Grupo Mexicano (2nd phase)
Construction Supervision: Fernando Cabrera, Javier Arreola, Frida Escobedo
Furniture design: Frida Escobedo
Total Floor Area: 2,890sqm
Budget: $2,240,000 USD
Invited competition, 1st. Place
Cuernavaca, Morelos
Mexico, 2012

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La Tallera gallery by Frida Escobedo appeared first on Dezeen.

Mexican firm Taller 6A has renovated a library inside an eighteenth-century building in Mexico City, adding a bookshop with hundreds of wooden boxes on its walls, its ceilings, and under its glass floor (+ slideshow).

Named La Ciudadela, the historical building had previously served as a military headquarters, a prison, a school and a weapons factory, but was converted into a library in 1946. Its last renovation was in 1987, when Mexican architect Abraham Zabludovsky added canopies over the courtyards, so Taller 6A was brought in to modernise existing facilities and make room for new activities.

The architects created a combined bookshop and exhibition space within a pair of symmetrical corridors at the northern end of the complex.

Hollow wooden boxes of different sizes and proportions were mounted to the long walls of the two corridors, creating an assortment of niches for storing and displaying books, as well as recessed lighting fixtures.

More of these boxes cover the ceilings, while the floor comprises a grid of criss-crossing wooden planks that provide extra display areas beneath a transparent surface.

The project also included the addition of a new children’s library at the western end of the building, which is divided into two sections to separate quiet workspaces from rooms dedicated to group activities and play.

Here, circular bookshelves and desks are interspersed with brightly coloured furniture, and spaces open out to a pair of adjoining terraces.

Upgrades to the rest of the building included reinstating the main courtyards as public areas, introducing natural lighting and ventilation, and improving disabled access.

Photography is by Jaime Navarro.

Here’s a project description from Taller 6A:

The City of the Books and the Images

“La Ciudadela” is a building from the end of the XVIII century and it was conceived as the Royal Tobacco Factory from Spain. It was built at the border of the colonial city of Mexico and it has had different functions over the time: military headquarter, prison, weapons factory, school, and, from 1946 to the present, as a Library; in fact, it was the first Library, as that, in Mexico. In 1987, the building had a big intervention, designed by Abraham Zabludovsky, in which the four main patios and the central one were covered with structures as umbrellas covering them.

The actual intervention in the historic building aims in: a) reorganising the program of the different activities for a more logical and efficient operation; b) recovering the character of the building by taking back the functioning of the original patios and restoring the pathways, crossing from north to south and in the perimeter, of the building; c) improving the conditions of natural light and ventilation to get a better and rational use of the energy and resources available; d) attending the requirements of accessibility by using tactile guides and signals and ramps in a topography that eliminates any kind of step in the common areas; and e) updating the installations and equipments of the library according to the needs and uses of interconnectivity of the modern life.

Children’s Library

The project for this area guarantees the safety of the children. The section beside the street houses the Braille area, a multipurpose space, digital teaching, the toy library, and a specialised area for babies, everything organised around a patio; the second one, around a garden that connects this area with the central patio of the building, contains the general library and the workshop area; this differentiation of sections allows the division between playing and reading areas to avoid distractions in the last one. In its interior, bookcases and the control points are solved with independent circular elements adapted to each need that permits free flows, a general visual contact of the area, and to concentrate small groups of children inside them.

“Alejandro Rossi” Bookstore

Conceived not only for selling but also as an exhibition area, the bookstore is located in two symmetrical spaces separated by the north-south corridor of “The City of the Books in La Ciudadela”: one is for general books, other for young and children material. In both cases, the access contains the control and cashiers area while a long and narrow space is treated as a covering honeycomb which varies in their deeps: in the walls, it works to contain books, screens and seating containers; in the ceiling, it hides the lights and MEP; in the floor, if conforms a mesh, covered with glass, that receives books, objects and other kind of stuff for exhibition to identify each block of the bookstore with kind of public it will receive.

Project: The City of the Books and the Images Master Plan
Location: La Ciudadela Square, Centro Neighbourhood, Mexico City
Architect: Taller 6A (Bernardo Gómez-Pimienta, Luis Enrique Mendoza y Alejandro Sánchez)
Team Members: Alejandro Juárez, José Barreto, Alfredo Cortes, Christian Santillano, Iván Rey Martínez, Alejandra Aguirre, Edgar González, Mariana Ruiz, Homero González, Raymundo Alonso, Luis Felipe Márquez, Lourdes Lozano, Monserrat Díaz, Roberto Andonie, Otto Pérez, Sebastián Navarro, Álvaro Rodríguez, Héctor Fuentes, Andrea García, José Manuel Estrada, Juvencio Nuñez, Gerardo Estrada, Freddy Jafet, Ana María, Flor.

Year of Design: 2011
Year of Construction: 2011-2012
Area: 25,450 m2
Structure: Izquierdo Ingenieros y Asociados, S.C.
MEP: Diseños Integrales de Ingeniería, S.A. de C.V.
Lighting: Luz en Arquitectura, S.C.
Landscaping: Entorno Taller de Paisaje.
Graphic Design: Varela + Kimura
Rendering: Erick Barrón
Model: Patricia Aguerrebere
Virtual video: Erick Barrón

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features bookshop covered in boxes appeared first on Dezeen.

The central staircase inside this office in Mexico City by architecture studio Goko is made up of different sections, including some that look like they are upside down.

Goko cut through the floor plates of the four-storey office for marketing agency Map to create a staircase that would animate the building and encourage more interaction between staff.

Constructed from a combination of brick, concrete and timber, the staircase was designed to look different on each storey, particularly between the ground and first floors where the climb is broken up into three stages.

“The concept was to attach three different parts to each other as a whole, in order to have a different angle or point of view of the element on each level,” architect Christopher Koehn Martinez told Dezeen.

“Although there’s a main elevator in the building, the staircase was designed to be the central feature. You have to use it to connect and interact with other people, and it provides a little workout,” he added.

The rest of the interior was designed with an open-planlayout that features simple colours and materials, including polished concrete floors, white walls and glazed partitions.

Workspaces are arranged in clusters on every floor and each employee is responsible for looking after a plant.

Lockers offer places for employees to store their belongings, plus cafe and bar areas are located on the ground floor.

“Our mission was to provide employees an alternate space where work and pleasure could exist,” said the architect.

Here’s a project description from Goko:

“Agile Working” – The luxury of freedom

Today’s technology has enabled us to work anytime and anywhere. Performance is no longer determined by time spent on the office but by results. The trend is that less individual cubicles exist and more often we see companies encouraging open spaces that allow greater interaction and creativity.

Our goal: to have more efficient workers; that hours spent at work where more productive and enhance a better quality of life. Satisfied with the results of the previous project we did, our client chose to take this same experience and apply it to their new offices: a marketing firm ready to take it’s workers to the next level.

Our mission was to provide employees an alternate space where work and pleasure could exist. Informal working areas on each level, a cafeteria to interact , open bars where they could work with each other or with customers. To work while doing something nice like having a coffee, a work lunch while listening to music, to play ping pong or to work on a living room alike space.

The Vertical Heart

We seized 4 floors in an office building connecting the four levels with a main internal staircase. Inside we drilled each level’s slabs and created a central vertical volume as the core: a connection between all company’s levels, spaces and areas.

Through this we centralised all company’s access creating interaction between employees. Encouraging exercise that generates endorphins reflected in mood and user performance .

Polished concrete floors, white walls, clear glasses and the apparent slab on a light grey tone resulted in a much larger space feeling. We also used a series of pendant lights as the only element of indirect illumination creating ideal work light quality. Informal working. Fun at work.

Living Rooms, wall-talkers, personalised plants & ping pong

As a visual key to the central staircase, we created informal working areas on each level: a waiting room with lockers for each user. The idea of the living rooms was to create a flexible space to share ideas among employees, store their belongings in lockers or to receive a client with less formality .

With a special paint, we took the perimeter walls as a canvas for drawing, writing and translating ideas into them. The divisions between the few office cubicles were made with two clear crystals and a white inner film in order to draw and write on both sides. With this we helped visualise an idea and facilitate its realisation .

We consider living vegetation an indispensable element in the offices. As the only element of colour, we customised a small potted plants design, assigning each member of the company with its own plant, so that each individual is responsible for watering it and keeping it alive. This idea helped us to create an action of responsibility and consciousness.

A ping pong table lies in the middle of the creative area as an element of fun and distraction to help achieve best ideas at the right time.

The offices are no longer merely a corporate place with a cold atmosphere, which is why we injected energy to create a living office.

Project: Map Marketing Offices
Design: Goko MX (Christopher Koehn, Jose Martín González)
Colaborator: Isaac Guzmán
Date: February 2013
Location: South Mexico City
Design and construction: Goko MX

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at an office in Mexico appeared first on Dezeen.