Estudios Donceles 1.0
Estudios Donceles is a mixed-use building that challenges the current rule book of the real estate industry in Mexico, since instead of developing an “exclusive” building, the project was designed to be inclusive and connected with its surrounding community.
Furthermore, the building with six flexible units of 50m2 each, a commercial ground floor and a semipublic rooftop area, functions as a catalyst that attracts people from different socio-economic backgrounds to the area, thus forming a more diverse social tissue.
The four-level typology seems like a very practical solution to densify urban areas, since the foundations and structure are usually simple, and relatively high densities can be achieved while maintaining a friendly urban scale for pedestrians and the surrounding context.
The main ideal of the project is to develop a building that opens up to its immediate context, in order to encourage community engagement, while providing at the same time an intimate experience for its residents. Furthermore, the project seeks to revive the neighborhood values that long existed within Mexican communities, since it’s a place that satisfies basic human needs, but at the same time invites people to go out, socialize, meet up and form relations.
In addition, a public-space intervention area was established, which revitalized a public walkway that also benefits twenty neighboring houses. Once the intervention area was assigned, a participatory design process was put into practice, that took into account the needs and opinions of the community for the final solution.
Estudios Donceles is a project conceived with the highest values of sustainability. It fosters community building, as well as the reasonable use of natural resources. Moreover, the building breaks traditional urban development rules in favor of the people who actually live in the area. In short, it is the result of using architecture as a tool applied to the highest standard of social responsibility (inclusion).
