Future Forward Environments
Angular Consultores © 2025
Neighborhood, geometry, and color.
Redefining spaces where the old and the new coexist.
How do you approach a mixed-use proposal when the existing structure is organized around a central courtyard? This was the question that sparked the project, located in a predominantly residential area in northwest Mexico City. The starting point was a building whose age made it difficult, even with careful measurements, to anticipate what the construction process would reveal.
This condition became key to the project's development. As is often said in these situations, "you never know what you're going to find." Faced with this, the design team established a clear strategy to determine precisely which elements to preserve, which to adapt, and which to demolish, intervening only as necessary and seeking a balance between the client's needs, the qualities of the existing structure, and the site's particularities.
The program includes a showroom, store, demonstration kitchen, meeting room, and administrative office, organized based on a careful reading of the building's spatial configuration, original materials, natural light, and the logic behind the demolition process. From this analysis, the proposal emphasizes outdoor spaces, particularly an area called "Open Chapter," conceived as a meeting place and courtyard for events where classes taught by barbecue masters are held. This space, the heart of the project, is located beneath a pre-existing steel canopy that was rehabilitated as part of the intervention and highlighted with a suspended lighting grid, reinforcing its celebratory character and establishing it as the nucleus of the complex.
Given that these grillmasters come from regions in the north of the country, incorporating housing became particularly important within the architectural program. Additionally, commercial, operational, and administrative areas were integrated; however, the building's life unfolds mainly outdoors through green areas, an open kitchen, a barbecue patio, and a wood library, a space dedicated to cataloging, storing, displaying, and managing firewood of various species.
Visual experience through the fusion of Mexican colonial heritage and contemporary materiality
The finishes play a fundamental role in integrating the pre-existing and the new, where colors, geometric patterns, and the character of specific concrete elements act as a common thread. On one hand, yellow, used strategically, functions as an identifying element linked to the country's colonial heritage, present in representative regions such as San Miguel de Allende, while also evoking the chromatic spectrum of fire, a vital element in the processes that take place in this building.
The prefabricated concrete latticework plays a neutral role within the complex, facilitating the transition between the old and the new, providing privacy in certain areas, and creating a subtle contrast in the overall volume. This geometric and orthogonal dimension is established as a constant that extends from the latticework to the wood store, unifying the exterior design. Inside, this same logic is reflected in the design of the store's shelves, maintaining the formal coherence of the project through a geometric repetition that structures and organizes the spaces.
The visual language of the interior maintains continuity with the exterior, articulated through functionality, geometry, and color. To optimize circulation and use of the building, specific elements were demolished, and rather than being hidden, they were emphasized through visible "scars" marked with geometric-patterned ceramic tiles. This material resource is repeated throughout different spaces, adapting its expression. In the bathrooms, the pattern varies subtly, while in other areas, a solid yellow
color is used in direct dialogue with the paint on the facade.
Returning to the initial question, the answers proposed by this project revolve around functionality, identity, and a series of design decisions aimed at using available resources efficiently. The approach aims to preserve the character of the existing structure while introducing a dimension that responds to the client's needs in a manner consistent with its intended use and visual expression. Based on this logic, the spaces are organized with a community focus, in a system reminiscent of the shared
structure of traditional vecindades, a multifamily typology centered around a shared courtyard that, in this case, serves as an articulator of the different functions under the same structure.
Team: Alfredo González, Jesús Quiroga, Diego González, Diana Ocampo, Alejandro Arrieta, Gabriela Olivera, Fernanda Ávila, Daniela Santiago
General Contractor: Edgar Compean, Benito Larios, Gaby Larios
Brands associated with the project: Latticework (Muro Blanco), Paint (Comex), Tiles (Interceramic), Lighting (Tecnolite), Melamine (Arauco), Bathroom Mosaic Tiles (Macere)
Photography: Recording Architecture - Paco Alvarez
