2019 Architecture Awards

BUILD 2019 Architecture Awards 52 May19144 ounded in 2001, LEAP is a creative company that delivers a wide range of projects across Mexico. Since its creation LEAP has been broadly published internationally both in printed media as in recognized websites, showcasing its innovative work. Completing masterful projects would be impossible without an expert team of staff. As such, LEAP is proud to have a premium staff of professionals, who together work to deliver exceptional standard of service to the firm’s clients. This expert team works closely with their clients to deliver the best solution to their needs with projects that are contextually sound, sustainable and highly valued as architecture. Regardless of the scale, the LEAP team view every project as a means to experiment, searching for constant innovation in every aspect of their work. When reviewing LEAP for consideration in this year’s Architecture Awards, our judges were struck by the firm’s work on the Olmo Tower. This innovative creation is in the city of Xalapa, next to the highway overpass Arco Sur. The site has a strong topographic slope, with the highest level being 7m above the street level. On the west side of the building is a stairway that connects to the lobby, a ramp offers an alternate way of arriving to the same lobby. The lobby and the business center are located above the commercial space. This floor level offers different services as a front desk, an auditorium and meeting rooms among other amenities. The office floors are completely flexible, so they can accommodate a wide variety of layouts, there is a central core where elevators, stairs and bathrooms are located. Laboratorio en Arquitectura Progresiva: Best Architectural Design Studio 2019 - Western Mexico & Best Corporate Building Architecture Project (Mexico): Olmo Tower LEAP Laboratorio en Arquitectura Progresiva is a Multidisciplinary Architecture Studio with experience in strategic planning, architectural design and urban design. We profile the firm to find out more about the services it has to offer across this diverse range of practice areas. F The design of the outer facade layer gives the office building a distinctive character. From a distance and during the day it is perceived as a solid metallic cube. The texture is achieved with only two different 3D panels and all the possible configurations allowed by the geometry of the panels. By night the skin of the building becomes transparent due to the tiny perforations of the metal sheet, transforming the building into an urban night lamp. When undertaking the project, the main challenge for the LEAP team was to find an adequate and balanced response to the program, which required flexible open office space, and the site which is located on a rising platform right beside a vehicular overpass. The characteristics of the site demanded an architectural solution that could take advantage of the special conditions of location and topography, and as such the firm’s proposal was to produce a pure geometrical form, placed atop of a platform that could signal a reference point in the city, the challenge was to solve the facades of a neutral cube without compromising the building to the less favorable orientation. The solution was to treat the four facades equally, with a material that could permit the views to the landscape and at the same time could protect the building from the sun of the west. Therefore, the building has a dual layer for the facades, an exterior perforated metal cladding in triangular panels that protects from heat gains and excessive sunlight, and an inner glass layer, the space in between is a corridor that permits the employees to walk outside the air-conditioned space to relax and enjoy the surrounding views, the corridor acts also as a buffer that dissipates the heat from the perforated metal panels and reduces significantly the energy consumption. Above the previous description was also the challenge to design within a budget and a schedule, the project met both targets, economic and time of construction, in part due to the