Rolando Girodengo



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@rgirodengo
Galeana Regional Centre



Year
Location
Status
Co-authors
Area
2019
Galeana, NL, México
Built
Adrián Flores, Carolina Segura, David de la Garza
1,700 m2




During 2017 there was a big push from authorities in the state of Nuevo León, México to bring cultural infrastructure to historically under-served areas. One such attempt was by creating a Regional Centre at Galeana that could serve as an outreach centre for locals who otherwise wouldn’t receive help from the centralized state offices. The master plan for the Centre consisted of several buildings that acted as planes that subdivided the vast site into more manageable and human-scaled patios, always in relationship with the surrounding mountains and accidents in topography.

Since there was no certainty all the buildings would be designed by our practice, the design was developed as a systematic approach that could be easily understood and replicated for the rest of the campus. This approach consisted of heavy and stereotomic volumes which host specialized programs and services, in combination with more flexible, lightweight and tectonic spaces between them that could work for ever-changing program requirements.

The heavy volumes are made up of thick walls of pigmented cast concrete in order to have a lot of thermal mass to account for temperature variation within day and night. Apertures in the walls frame features in the site such as the ravine or existing endemic vegetation. The first volume is the tallest of the complex and houses administrative offices of the Centre. It is a watchtower that dominates the site.

The two flexible spaces have lower ceilings for two purposes. The main entrance to the Centre compresses users as they arrive in order to push the view into the mountain range and a ravine. The other space, which is designed for children, has low ceilings to keep the warm air closer and pose a more comfortable height for its intended users.