Designed in the context of the pandemic, this proyect emerges as a critical reflection on contemporary commercials spaces and their capacity to adapt to new models of living, working, and consumption.
Far from constituting an immediate response to the health emergency, the proposal stems from a deeper concern: how should architecture respond to a reality that demands flexbility, efficiency, and urban responsibility in the long term?
The building is conceived as a versatile commercial space, capable of accomodating multiple occupancy schemes. It can operate as a single unit, be divided into four independent platforms across two levels. This flexibility proposes a more dynamic vision of land use and urban property. The building, conceived as an indivisible patrimonial asset, will be managed by an entity resonsible for its urban-commercial purpose, maintenance, evolution, and permanence over time.
The project is located in a former low-density neighborhood adjacent to the historic center of the city of Querétaro, currently undergoing a process of regulatory transformation. This change aims to encourage increased densification and the transition toward commercial and service-oriented uses, within a broader logic of urban revitalization.
Formally, the building consists of a semi-basement and two open-plan levels above street level. While the semi-basement is legislatively designated for services—parking, mechanical rooms, and shared restrooms—it is designed as an open plan to accommodate commercial programs that engage with the street, aiming to activate the immediate surroundings. At street level, this openness fosters public life, encouraging social interaction through programs integrated into the existing neighborhood fabric. The upper two levels feature open platforms divided by a central staircase core, organizing circulation and structuring the space. This configuration allows internal subdivisions without compromising environmental quality, enhances natural light and cross-ventilation, and establishes vertical connections through strategically placed voids that link the semi-basement to the rooftop.
During construction, the opportunity arose to incorporate the rooftop as an active space. In contrast to neighboring roofs -often abandoned, saturated with improvised installations, and turned into sources of visual pollution-, the proposal sought to transform this upper plane into an integral part of the project. The intervention consisted of two strategies: on one hand, planters that act as passive insulation, reducing interior temperatures and lowering the need for mechanical cooling systems; on the other, the construction of two block vaults over the dome and the stair overrun, which provide shade, collect rainwater, and enhance ventilation through the Venturi effect, generating a comfortable atmosphere without energy consumption.
The materiality of the building responds to an aesthetic of constructive honesty. Exposed industrial materials are employed: steel structure, block walls, translucent metal grilles, and visible mechanical and electrical systems in pink tones, which symbolically evoke the pink quarry stone of the historic center's pavements. This choice is not only driven by economic project's values: clarity, funcionality, efficiency, and permanence.
Beyond its internal logic, the building is concieved as an agent of urban transformation. Its purpose is not only to accommodate economic activity, but also to contribute to the regeneration of the social fabric, enrich its emmediate context, and promote a more sustainable urban model.
