Efizia will be built in Santa Fe, the city's burgeoning commercial and leisure district
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Ten thousand miles from the Gulf’s harsh sun and shortages of water and energy, SPACE Architects + Planners designs Latin America’s first LEED Gold building to address the very same challenges
Answering a call for ‘The Best Building in Latin America’, Chicago’s SPACE Architects + Planners didn’t hesitate when asked by Mexico City developer Diimx to design and build Efizia Tower to a standard of green building never before seen south of the Rio Grande.
The request came as little surprise to Juan Carlos Baumgartner, managing director of SPACE’s Mexico City office, as Diimx is well known throughout the country for building cutting-edge residential and commercial properties.
“Group president Andres Flores chose a younger, avant garde firm in SPACE to bring new ideas, imagination and flexibility that would meet the demands of a Mexico City government whose plan is to reach ‘global city’ level in new development,” explains Diimx’s Philip Mondragon.
Despite its clean and green philosophy, the site Diimx chose for SPACE’s eco-friendly Efizia Tower, was located directly in the centre of one of the city’s most historically rundown areas. Located in the Santa Fe district, the site used to have little in the way of context besides dilapidated living/training quarters for the long defunct Triple A wrestling federation, some sand mines and a garbage dump. It seems, however, that this is changing.
“This area of the city only started to develop about 20 years ago,” explains Kai Diederichsen of Luz en Arquitectura, lighting consultant on Efizia Tower. “Before that, it was an abandoned area.”
Today, however, things in the Santa Fe district are much different. After a three-phase government initiative to encourage building modernisation, the Efizia Tower site is surrounded by several projects that will become office, residential and retail spaces serving the city’s burgeoning business and leisure markets.
The transition of the neighbourhood can be largely credited to the foresight of Diimx—with considerable help from the Mexican government—whose development strategy was always to build a tower fit for an international occupier that would raise the profile of Santa Fe as a credible and promising business district.
Regarding context, Diederichsen thinks Efizia Tower is right on the mark. “Once it’s finished, the height, density and population of the building will respond very closely to the surrounding buildings.”
Although unfinished—completion is expected in 2012—the design of the Efizia Tower recently caught the eye of international critics in winning a commendation at the 2009 Architectural Review Futures Projects Awards in Cannes.
The well articulated design comprises 33 floors featuring floor plates of 2,000 m². All tolled, the total built area is approximately 66,000 m² and is made up of retail space on the ground and first floors, with offices occupying all of the higher levels.
The podium level architecture creates a public plaza at the entrance to the building, which allows the building to integrate with the city and vice versa.
The way in which the building will function is as much a testament to its intelligent architecture as is its unique cladding or building-block design. For SPACE, the essence of Efizia’s architecture is based on the building’s level of eco-friendliness, responsiveness to its context and the degree to which it can set a new standard in Mexico and the whole of Latin America.
“In general, architecture uses a great amount of natural resources—the use of water and energy, as well as the emission of toxic gases will last for decades,” explains Diederichsen. “In Mexico, there are thousands of buildings that were built in the last century and adhere to other standards. Even today, they are consuming up to 10 times more energy and resources than modern buildings. Consequently, modern architecture needs to be up-to-date and aggressive in matters of eco-friendly design. It is our responsibility.”
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