Tatiana Bilbao Estudio was approached by the University of Monterrey with the unique opportunity of creating a mixed use educational-commercial space that would also provide the university with an adequate parking structure.
Work had already begun, a massive pit had been dug, so it was imperative to work from this point to avoid any further construction delays or escalating costs.
The decision was made to integrate habitable spaces with the parking structure and embed the combined structure into the existing hillside. Due to the complexity of activities demanded by the brief and the region’s difficult climactic profile, the resultant rectangular clusters each shelter specific parts of the program: underground levels for more private use with the ground and upper levels for public functions. Exterior volumes shade one another and interior spaces. The neighboring Tadao Ando building for the architecture faculty prompted us to evolve a subtler design that would avoid creating a condition of competing, dual sculptural structures. These strategies left an open ground level that could be programmed as a park or plaza.
Landscape on the plaza was partitioned into northern and southern sections, connected by a linear park after the client’s suggestion that this space have an open-ended nature. We wanted to enhance user’s choices for spatial usage, not dictate them. Diagonal green areas create a second, complimentary system to the orthogonal logic of the volumes.
