Location: Mexico City, Mexico.

Architect: CIMET Arquitectos.

The Glorieta Insurgentes Tower project is an example of urban acupuncture, which involves improving the damaged infrastructure of a city to promote its potential and development. The tower was designed to act as an urban acupuncture needle in one of the nerve points of Mexico City, becoming a spearhead in the rescue of the area named Glorieta Insurgentes roundabout and public plaza. The tower has transformed and improved this forgotten area that had been deteriorating with the passing of the years and the little attention that it had received. The tower stands as a landmark in Mexico City with an elegant and timeless design, which articulates Chapultepec Avenue with the Insurgentes Roundabout taking its semicircular shape and detonating it vertically to develop an office building of 26 levels above ground with a 120 m height. The tower has direct access to the public transportation hub connecting the plaza through a new pedestrian path underground, encouraging the use of public and alternative transport in a city where movement is a major issue.

The design of the different spaces has been carefully studied to enhance user experience. The tower is a smart building with 57.9% in energy savings and up to 100% water savings, during rainy season, due to a combination of design strategies and technologies. The structural solution was a special challenge taking in mind Mexico’s seismic conditions as well the plot constrains. So they developed in collaboration with the structural engineer a hybrid steel-concrete structure of a single frame bay with very wide clearings to offer versatile spaces supported by few mega-columns as well as an ultra-resistant foundation consisting of 54 m deep stilts and a 1 m thick structural slab. The tower has amenities for further comfort, an 800 people double height multi-purpose hall with retractile bleachers in the 8th floor as well as vegetated roof-gardens representing 20% of the plot area on top of the parking structure. The tower is a building with optimal operation with zero over cost. The tower has been designed with the principals of comfort and experience of the inhabitant, functionality, sustainability and energy efficiency with LEED Platinum Certification, transit oriented development with TOD Standard Silver Certification, seismic resilience, construction quality, characteristics of materials and ease of maintenance.

Photo credit: Luis Gallardo / LGM Studio Zaickz Moz.