Mexico's Gold Mine

Efizia will be built in Santa Fe, the city's burgeoning commercial and leisure district
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THE DESIGN

Mixing together its long history of interior design with an intuitive loyalty to function over form, SPACE designs its projects according to its ‘inside-out approach’. “We view the external architecture as a shell for protecting the internal space from what is happening outside, hence ensuring that the building is fit for purpose and designed for occupation,” explains Baumgartner. “We design from the inside-out and the shell is the result of everything else”.

“What makes this a unique approach is that the architects designed an ideal interior. From there they ‘dressed’ the building with the right suit to make it as efficient as possible,” adds Diederichsen. “This project has the potential to bring about a new trend in building design in Mexico.”

Moreover, SPACE employs what can only be considered a remarkable and revolutionary integrated design approach. Put simply, this is a collaborative method of design that includes a completely interdisciplinary team, made up of consultants and stakeholders that have myriad interests in the building’s ultimate design.   

Conventional building design usually involves a series of handovers from owner to architect, architect to builder and builder to occupant. This path generally fails to consider the needs, expertise or insights from all stakeholders from the beginning of the planning process.
 
Often times, using the conventional method of concept design, incompatible elements of the design go undiscovered until late in the process when sheer costs preclude any major changes to design. At that stage, changes either happen, and the building is delayed, or they don’t happen, and the building moves forward with unchecked or ignored mistakes. To combat this scenario, SPACE has drawn on the knowledge base of more than 25 consultants in Efizia Tower.

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THE GREEN ELEMENTS

Having obtained a LEED Gold standard at the pre-certification stage, SPACE has several initiatives in place to ensure that, once finished, the built Efizia can actually attain that certification. 

Mexico City has long suffered from an insufficient water supply, which is compounded by a rudimentary water infrastructure system in the places water does exist. Due to the growing water crisis, architects and developers in Mexico have to design and commission buildings that find innovative ways to harness and protect the city’s precious water supply. 

Rain water collection technology has been included in the initial design of Efizia. Mexico City receives between 0.18 and 8.22 cm of water per month, which means that once this technology is functioning properly, Efizia’s dependency on municipal water will be reduced by 70%.

THE FACADE DESIGN

The building’s dual facade is constructed of double glazed glass and a unique stainless steel mesh that reduces stress on the HVAC system and balances the use of natural and artificial light. When functioning in concert, the glass/mesh facade will be able to reduce energy consumption by approximately 37%. 

“I was asked to focus on lighting design, so the challenge was special: Reduce energy use by 15% and set the standard for an efficient daylight harvesting system for the new tenants; all this together with an ideal U-value for the developed facade system,” explains Diederichsen. “We had the biggest area on the western facade, which can be more challenging than the southern facade, due to solar position in our latitudes.” 

Together with SPACE, Diederichsen developed the two-layer system in order to get the best solar protection for the most critical hours of the day, while still allowing an almost direct view from inside out.

The duo created a ‘skin’ that contained high VL transmission glass, which means a very efficient U-value for the integrated facade system, which will ultimately reduce solar gain and utilise stored daylight.   

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