GOR Building

[Left] Victoria street view. [Right] Veranda.

Project details

• Project Name: GOR Building
• Client: GOR Construcciones
• Project Type: Office building
• Principal Designer: Pascal Arquitectos
• Contractor/s: Pascal Arquitectos
• Date of commencement of project: 2003
• Date of completion of project: 2005
• Location of site: Mexico City, Mexico
• Built-up Area: 13,000 m²
• Cost of Construction/Execution: US$ 2,000,000

[Left] Original GOR Building. [Right] Facade transformation.

Words from the designer

"The intervention in this 25 year old building ascribes to the damaged materials and the necessity to keep up with the new thermo-acoustic requirements of the area. To accomplish this objective a passive but highly effective energy saving facade was adapted. The target was to restore the building with a modern image with the evident utilization of new technologies."

[Left] The complete restoration had to be made without emptying the offices. [Right] Utilization of new technologies.

Veranda.

"Logistics were very complex because the complete restoration had to be made without emptying the offices. Physical factors were sorted out by building a hermetic facade; and placing a double aluminum facade with horizontal melaminized oversized wood louvers that block the sunlight, and laminated glass with a polyvinyl film in order to fulfill the thermo-acoustic requirements."

Effective energy saving facade.

[Left] Laminated glass with a polyvinyl film. [Right] Oversized wood louvers.

"These louvers were set up over the aluminum contours anchored in the structure by steel cantilevers, with 1.22 m distance from the facade. "

[Left] Modern image. [Right] Hermetic facade.

In the vertical joints a common node was utilized.

"In the vertical joints a common node was utilized in order to ease the displacement of each part and to absorb, at the same time, the movements generated by earthquakes or by the building's natural auto compression."

[Left] Private and commercial area. [Right] Ejercito Nacional street view.

"On the main floor, in a section of the ground that was practically given away to the public-way, a veranda was built - achieving the integration of that floor level and transforming it into a private and commercial area."

Credits

• Text by Carlos Pascal
• Photographs by Jaime Navarro, Courtesy of the Architect
• Compiled and Edited by Varun M Ajani