The work that Rojkind Arquitectos has completed for another pair in Nestlé factories can be signed on this streak. Starting from the hallway to its chocolate factory located on the outsides of Toluca, near Mexico City: a structure made out of faceted planes attached to the existent factory that works as a Museum that still has Phase 2 to develope. The second assignment, on the industrial zone of Querétaro, a Laboratory building which´s main objetives are: To be the open inovation example for Nestlé and the rig driver for Nestlé Mexico through continuous consumer, client and business relevant innovation for flexible manufacturing, to be the packaging competence centre and innovation drive for Nestle Mexico, and to operate as a satellite to PTC Marsyville to become the centre of competence in liquid beverages in Latin America.
In addition to the relation with existing industrial structures, this new commission involved an extra challenge. In 1996 UNESCO declared the historic center of Queretaro World Heritage Site, which had unforeseen effects even in the industrial periphery: the new building had to be an arched portico –tradition oblige. Rojkind faced this issue reinterpreting both the arch and the portico. If an arch is a still fragment of a dome or –what is the same– a dome is an amplified arch turning over its own axis, doesn’t matter: a dome can fulfill the demand for an arch without falling back on clichés. In this case, a series of intersected domes, multiplied as a foam, form the matrix of an open and continuous space –the portico– which expands while another space, formed by simple boxes cladded in a satin finish reflective glass , contains the expansion of spheres –which in turn extrudes– and houses the laboratory program.
While the apparently metallic and impregnable exteriors are opaque, the interiors of these boxes, painted in different colors, have an almost theatrical quality: in their white working coats, researches float in a continuous blue, yellow or green, cut out against a contrasting color. Sometimes, when one of the exterior panels reveals itself as a window, these interiors can be guessed from the outside.
Maybe elsewhere this project would have been built using sophisticated technologies for the customized production of specific parts according to the complex geometry of the spheres. Here, this geometry had to be translated from formal and spatial logics into a simple, almost colloquial constructive logic, which allowed local construction builders to build the foamy space by means of the physical intersection of semi-spherical domes assembled with arches and rings of steel rods.
While the apparently metallic and impregnable exteriors are opaque, the interiors of these boxes, painted in different colors, have an almost theatrical quality: in their white working coats, researches float in a continuous blue, yellow or green, cut out against a contrasting color. Sometimes, when one of the exterior panels reveals itself as a window, these interiors can be guessed from the outside.
Maybe elsewhere this project would have been built using sophisticated technologies for the customized production of specific parts according to the complex geometry of the spheres. Here, this geometry had to be translated from formal and spatial logics into a simple, almost colloquial constructive logic, which allowed local construction builders to build the foamy space by means of the physical intersection of semi-spherical domes assembled with arches and rings of steel rods.
The final result is a series of unified contrast: metallic, glossy exterior, with and against brilliant, colorful interiors, the abstract planes of the exterior boxes, with and against the exuberance of the connected spheres. It may be that the strength of this project results from this play of opposites that, in a dynamic way and depending on the observer position, can be dominant in a moment and discrete the next one. Industrial building recovers that way, re-thought and reloaded, part of that which itself gave once to architecture: clarity and force.
+ Project credits
+ Project credits
CONSTRUCTION: 700 sq.meters
PROGRAM: Laboratories, Offices, Auditorium, Tasting area
CLIENT: NESTLÉDESIGN
YEAR: 2007
DATE OF COMPLETION: 2009
ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT: ROJKIND ARQUITECTOSPRICIPAL
ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT: ROJKIND ARQUITECTOSPRICIPAL
IN CHARGE: MICHEL ROJKINDPROJECT
LEADERS: AGUSTÍN PEREYRA, PAULINA GOYCOOLEAPROJECT
TEAM: MORITZ MELCHERT, TERE LEVY, ISAAC SMEKE, TOMAS KRISTOF, FRANCISCO GORDILLO, ANDRÉS ALTESOR, JUAN PABLO ESPINOSA3D
MASSING: JUAN CARLOS VIDALSLANDSCAPE: ROJKIND ARQUITECTOSFINAL
PHOTOS: © Paúl Rivera
NESTLÉ SUPERVISION: FLAVIO GUERRERO, CRISTIAN MORENO
CONSTRUCTION: SLCI ENGINEER JOSE SOLISFACADE
ENGINEERING: VYCISA [JUAN PABLO CASILLAS, CYBELLE HERNÁNDEZ.]
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: JUAN FELIPE HEREDIAM.
E.P.: QUANTUM
DESIGNFURNITURE: ESRAWE DISEÑO / ARNE QUINZECARPETS: INTERFACE
