Warehouse and Offices for Clase Azul La Hacienda Jalisco
The intervention site for a tequila facility is located within the territorial axis known as the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, encompassing a sequence of volcanic eminences that define the Mexican landscape both mineralogically and topographically. This “landscape of fire” has allowed the development of succulent species such as agave, which have fostered the production of tequila and other fermented beverages since pre-Hispanic times.
We believe that the same volcanic landscape that shaped our cultural identity has suggested this specific architecture in material terms. Our proposal aims to recover this cultural landscape, where flora, fauna and the mineral substrate, combined with “fire materials” — lava and transformed clay — are present in this architecture and landscape project, which also promotes and protects native habitats.
Our work as architects has been defined by three main themes: the role of history in the architectural project, the relationship between architecture and nature through landscape, and attention to human aspects through the inclusion of rituals and myths.
When we were commissioned to develop an industrial facility for a tequila company, and after visiting the site, we thought the building, despite its scale, could reduce its presence to better relate to the surrounding landscape and maintain as much as possible the natural atmosphere we found in the original habitat.
For this reason, we decided to bury part of the building through a large excavation — a typical Land Art operation — in relation to the original topography, producing a large platform where the building could be located. From the east, the building appears as a “ceramic horizon”, because its roof, clad with traditional clay elements, physically anchors the building to the earth, producing a topographic relationship with the terrain and thus blurring the boundaries between architecture and landscape.
The intention of using local materials, such as typical ceramic elements produced locally and stone resulting from the site excavation, is related to the idea of anchoring the building to its geographical volcanic context, thus revealing the mineral substrate — the same condition that allows the growth of agave species used to produce tequila. Most importantly, this approach is based on the conviction that doing so could benefit regional producers and local artisan labour, which is in fact a fundamental part of the tequila company’s philosophy.
Being a production facility, we decided to use a classic industrial form: the sawtooth roof. The building is presented as a hybrid that relates regional elements, such as the Catalan vault, brick load-bearing walls and buttresses, with typical industrial forms such as trusses, metal columns and glazing in the sawtooth interstices. This allows light to enter, softened by the use of artisanal glass, which, in addition to controlling the intensity of natural light, produces an ethereal atmosphere typical of distillate warehouses.
The bay located to the east of the nave, containing the offices and laboratories, enjoys a particular relationship with the interior slope system and houses a longitudinal portico that functions as a pedestrian connection to the rest of the master plan. In this way, in addition to containing production and work areas, the building also manages to integrate the landscape into people’s daily lives.
Thereby, a hybrid building was achieved, able to simultaneously relate to the site, the local material tradition and the technology of the present, reflecting our deep engagement with ritualised construction methods and contributing to the preservation of artisanal knowledge still alive in the region.
Our interest in hybridising landscape and architectural typologies led us to propose an unusual relationship between slopes and roofs that collect rainwater and direct it to the exterior infiltration gardens and bioswales, making the building participate in the ecological infrastructure and habitat regeneration.
Finally, our master plan proposal promotes the use of native species for the protection of the former oak forest and the low deciduous habitat. The whole project is a territorial intervention in which the correlation between architecture, landscape, flora and fauna forms an integral part of the site’s transformation.
