Torre Inmersion

As our team research a site we took a step back and asked ourselves what the meaning of a skyscraper is, what fundamental roles does a skyscraper play with in the urban fabric of a city. We Started to compile a list of skyscrapers all around the world and saw that skyscrapers dwell in highly dense cities, but many skyscrapers fail to incorporate the people around the city to become part of the architecture. Looking through options of cities throughout the world, Mexico City was a perfect site for our concept. Mexico City has an outstanding transportation system which many of its habitants rely on to get from work to home, home to the market, or home to friends. Mexico is fully saturated and developing new horizontal construction has become impossible; the future of Mexico City depends on the idea of building a vertical city that can host a variety of programs within the same structure.

Concept: Vertical Immersion in a highly dense urban fabric.

Looking at the conditions set how could we hybridize two completely different programs such as private housing with and educational institution. There were 4 key roles our design should accomplish.

• Connection of our site with the existing Transportation
• Through studies of the metro system of Mexico City, there are no clear connections of the metro system with the ground above. Through out our research there were no buildings that connected into a building most entrances of a metro station are secluded from the public view. We took this miss connection and pushed the inclusion of the metro station to the skyscraper above. The Metro line “Hidalgo” is a busy intersection for daily commuters. We not only wanted a building at the entrance that led below to the metro station but wanted to allow the people underground to be part of the building without having to come to the ground level in the building. As someone walks out of the metro and comes up the stairs you get a glimpse at the structure above, allowing the daily commuter to experience the view of the building above. For the Inhabitants of our building, it would become easy access to the transportation system. This helps reach our goal to allow anyone to travel through Mexico City on the transportation already set and not rely on cars reducing the amount pollution on the air.
• Connection of our design to include the urban fabric.
• Our Concept of Vertical Immersion was based on how our building could be immersed into the urban fabric. What better way than to allow the bottom floor of the building to be a open space for the traditional “Markets” of Mexico. Instead of a building pushing people out we encourage people to become part of the architecture. Allowing people coming from the metro or from the busy street to pass through the bottom of the building This draws people in creating a catalyst for downtown Mexico City with an open plaza where people can come together.
• Our design giving back to environment in trouble.
• As Mexico struggles with the toxicity of the air due to high level of pollution. Our design immerses into the city as an aid to the local environment. The façade of our design would incorporate small like “Veins” trough out the façade that would serve as absorption of CO2 particles. As CO2 is absorbed through the veins in the façade, it will be stored in CO2 Chambers in the building. Which later would be released into the food supply for the green infrastructure such as the “Tree farm” located in the 4th level and the urban park in the top floor of the building. Thus, reducing the levels of CO2 in the city and allowing the purification of the air in Mexico City.
• Hybridizing two programs into one.
• Finally, how can our design hybridize a University (Public) and a Housing Tower (Private) to become one. As you might see in the designs of other tall buildings their first intuition is to separate the programs into a “Pancake System” where they have one program on the bottom, a separate program in the middle section and finally at the top a completely different program. This keeps everything under the same structure but at the same time disconnects people from the rest of the inhabitants.  Our aim is to allow everyone to experience the entire building. We achieved this by pushing the core of the building to the side instead of keeping it in the center like many skyscrapers and created an atrium that allows people to experience the entire space.  As we start in the lower floor it becomes a fusion of “Market” as well as Retail Stores which allows anyone from any type of economic background to come set up to sell or buy from local markets or name brand retailers. On the 5th floor we incorporated a public library that is open to both the students at the university and the city bringing knowledge to everyone. The 6th floor hosts and open space where faculty from the school would volunteer free workshops for people in the city or the private residents that wish to learn a special trade or immerse into another field. Floors 7 through 9 host studios for the students attending the university. Each studio is separated by a glass partition dividing the studio from the circulation of the building. Allowing students to only be heard by their peers while allowing any person to see into the studio. Floors 10 Through 18 host a Mixture of Student housing and Private Housing. Where Each floor incorporates glass “learning Pods” Where students or anyone can enter a “Learning Pod” and Study, read a Book, Practice and instrument . . . etc. The “learning Pods” will be soundproof. Floor 21 becomes an open terrace which allows the inhabitants to be part of the outer city but remain inside of the building away from the activities of the city at ground level. Level 22 hosts senior studios with a small auditorium for class lectures or anyone that wishes to reserve the space. On the Top roof of the building, we incorporated a green space for leisure time to allow people to relieve stress or enjoy a nice time “Outside” with out having to leave the building.