Glorieta de Insurgentes Tower, offices enjoying a 360º views
Cimet Arquitectos
Office&Business
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Completed
The Glorieta Insurgentes Tower project was designed based on the insertion of an urban acupunture needle in one of Mexico City’s nerve centers, promoting the rescue of the Glorieta Insurgentes area, which has different public transport lines such as the Metro and Bus rapid transit Metrobus. In addition, some of the most emblematic neighborhoods of Mexico City converge in its roundabout with a sunken plaza where hundreds of thousands of city dwellers connect to reach their destinations; the project acted as a trigger for the development of the area that had been deteriorating tremendously over the years and the little government attention but has fortunately been recently intervened.
The conception of the project included from the beginning the principles of comfort and experience of the inhabitant, functionality, sustainability and energy efficiency with LEED Platinum Certification, transit-oriented development with TOD Standard Silver Certification, seismic resilience, construction quality, durability via characteristics of materials and low maintenance.
The Tower stands as a landmark in the city with a sustainable and timeless design, it articulates Chapultepec Avenue with the Insurgentes roundabout taking its semicircular shape detonating it vertically to develop an office building of 26 levels and 120 meters high. It is located on an irregular site, complemented by a low volume of 10 levels in which the vehicular access and parking are located thru an alternate side street access. The tower is crowned by incredibly lush landscaped roofs with endemic low water consuming species on levels 8 and 10 offering very much needed spaces for leisure & relaxation giving the possibility to tower dwellers to be immersed in greenery in the middle of the city. These landscaped terraces are conveniently connected to a grand double height multipurpose hall with a total 800 seat capacity with retractile benching with optimum isoptics for conferences as well as moving walls that give it the ability of subdivision for smaller venues.
Knowing that mobility is of premier importance, the main access is pedestrian, emphasizing the direct connection with the esplanade of the Glorieta de Insurgentes & public transportation. The Lobby is a space immersed in light bordered by walls finished in granite accented with a reflective aluminum ceiling that amplifies the sense of space accentuating the experience of entering the Tower. Focusing on alternative transportation, the tower has 200 spaces for bicycles, with changing rooms and showers for its users, as well as spaces for motorcycles; reducing by 20% the amount of parking spaces normally required by code it has 900 car spaces.
The structural solution was developed with a single-bay hybrid steel-concrete structure with very wide clearings to offer versatile spaces supported by few mega-columns in turn supported by mega-piles at a depth of 54 m into the ground. High strength concrete and special specifications were required; with a total of more than 27,500 m3 of concrete supplemented with 6,700 tons. of structural steel and 2,300 tons. reinforcing rebar translating into a safe & seismic resilient Tower with a 200 years life span in mind.
The office levels offer wide, comfortable & versatile spaces enjoying 360º panoramic views of the entire the city. The facades are like staples that wrap around the volume of the tower accentuating its different bodies through modules with high-performance aluminum and glass fins. The tower’s envelope consists of a highly efficient skin of low emissivity glass allowing natural light to enter the interior as well as blocking thermal gain, thanks to that, reductions were made to consumption of both air conditioning and up to 70% less use of artificial lighting, providing natural light & outside views to over 90% of all occupied spaces.
The tower has an intelligent automation and control system for luminaires and blinds which, with real-time information on the environment such as orientation, weather information & installed sensors, calculates the optimal position for opening the blinds, also dimming the luminaires to obtain the correct level of illumination with greater comfort and with the greatest possible savings. Likewise, the air conditioning is of variable refrigerant flow by means of compact equipment located at each floor enabling independent operation, suppressing the chillers on the roof, allowing the installation of solar panels that produce approximately half of the energy consumption of the common areas of the building.
The services core with facilities and vertical circulations occupy only 9% of each level without sacrificing comfort in bathrooms, elevator lobby or stairwells, giving the floors an excellent efficiency of 91% according to the BOMA standards. It has 10 elevators, complemented by 2 stairs, one inside and one outside naturally ventilated. There is a pressurization system for the stairs and elevators in case of emergencies.
The Tower is a Smart Building with 57.9% in energy savings and from 70% up to 100% water savings, due to a combination of design strategies & technologies which include: totally automated lighting & shading system with occupancy sensing, daylight harvesting, dimming & scheduling through the entire building that calculates the optimal settings taking into account orientation conditions; efficient façade design with thermal gain blockage; air conditioning with a cost effective VRF System; roof solar panels; total water treatment including harvested rainwater & wastewater; a Building Management System to control all the buildings equipment from access controls, fire detection, pumping systems, water treatment plants, energy sub-metering, ventilation, air conditioning & all other installations making it a building with optimal operation with zero over cost.
It is one of Mexico’s most sustainable, energy efficient, automated, resilient & maintenance free High-Rise Building.
Cimet Arquitectos is a vertically integrated architectural firm, led by architects Sholem Cimet and Yoram Cimet, father and son, with more than 40 years designing, developing and building to improve the surroundings and the city overall, through residential and corporate typologies.
Cimet Arquitectos focuses on encompassing the process of the built scene from real estate development to architectural design and from construction to property management, creating rich spatial experiences to improve people's lives creating a positive impact on the built environment.
Cimet Arcquitectos creates sustainable and timeless designs through the principles of comfort, living experience of the inhabitants, functionality, sustainability and energy efficiency, oriented to limit traffic, seismic resistance, quality of construction, quality of materials and low maintenance. It also prints strategic thinking and technical vision in the construction process, achieving very high-quality final products.