Incubadora Social ITESM-BANCOMER

Text description provided by architect.

This refurbishment intends to offer a new quality-based, morphological-exploration for a social entrepreneurship incubator in a low-income area in León, Guanajuato, México.

The initiative of these social interventions is lead by two main institutions: Tecnológico de Monterrey (one of the best private universities in México) and Bancomer (one of the main banks of the country).

This projects has two aims: the first is to provide low income people with the best quality of higher education, thus, the same received by the students in university classrooms, just in a virtual way.

Having as canvas a prototypical house of the area, but being an innovative project for the community, the refurbishment intended to make a statement through an evident translation of the spatial concept to design.

An envelope able to break the typological sequence of the area, still being inviting rather than aggressive; creating an expressive main façade within an open public space.

For instance, the wooden lattices angle in the south-east façade provides passive solar heating in winter (solar radiation penetration), and direct solar radiation protection in summer.

To achieve a complex responsive morphology, several parametric tests where run in grasshopper, allowing the evaluation of the skin´s performance and select the best relationship between functioning and aesthetics.

As most studio projects, materials are an honest expression of its nature.

Many structural elements where recycled from a roof placed in the old garage area.

The project proves how low budget implementations can offer spatial quality with innovation.