The project XX de noviembre is an architectural proposal that seeks to dialogue with the general qualities of the city center of Guadalajara and on a more particular level with the tradition of the neighborhood of Analco. The dialogue is always based on the premise of architectural actuality. The site allows the building to witness a monumental conversation between eras manifested with words ranging from stone and brick to steel and reinforced concrete. Just a block from the Independence Road, it is part of the eternal tension between its two sides. As well as debtor of the vibe generated by the square of Los Dos Templos, the Mercado Libertad and the Parroquia de San José de Analco.
The complex nature of the environment is not hidden from the observer. The urban tensions that contrast tradition with modernity over several decades reveal a social, cultural and historical framework challenging perception. Tailored to match, the architectural approach uses simple gestures to be part of the conversation in its context. The ensemble is organized in four volumes of different heights arranged around the central courtyard.
The first of the volumes covers the entire width of the property and integrates with the street with a height familiar to its neighbors. We are welcomed with a facade that only on the ground floor is covered with natural plaster. This allows for a human scale in relation to a bench that has been extended to expand the pedestrian use of public space. The change of material in its walls emphasizes its classic character as a base and gives the rhythm of the windows of the two upper floors.
The access is framed within the basement and presented through a vestibule, its inclusion as a gesture plays an important role in preserving the architectural tradition of the neighborhoods. Once this threshold is reached the central courtyard, each side of which are a couple of twin buildings whose height is four levels. Its symmetry articulates the possibility of perceiving the central courtyard as a domestic cloister whose vegetation increases its vibrant nature as the ruling heart of the whole.
At the bottom of the site is the tallest building, with a height of five levels, which covers the width of the property in the same way as the first volume. Its height allows it to be a part of the urban horizon of the Independence Road without giving up its domestic scale. The volume looks carefully at the square of Los Dos Templos and you can see it through the street Prisciliano Sánchez. The four volumes are connected by means of walkways that dance around the central courtyard in the poetic of an Escher painting. They host domestic mobility, that is, they give place to public life within the whole, since the environment that predominates inside them are dwellings.
The variation in height is due to a gradual scaling from outside to inside the site, which makes the impact of the density of the whole more human as it approaches the street. All the roofs play the role of terraces for public conviviality and they host kitchen, sanitary services and area of laundries. With these spaces the volumes are crowned with a democratic space, the capital of each volume is a place for collective meeting.
