Awards Report: California Firm Receives Coveted P/A Prize

CRO Studio's design for a library in Tijuana, Mexico, also serves as a civic hub. Image courtesy CRO Studio.

While Modulo Prep Library’s footprint may be small and its construction budget tiny, its mission is anything but. Instead, the library, located in Tijuana and designed by CRO Studio partners Adriana Cuéllar and Marcel Sanchez (along with a design team of Gabriela Bendeck, Arturo González and Joseph Ruiz Tapia), represents a major re-thinking of the idea and function of a library and its role in a public space. So compelling was the project and the ideas behind it recently received the 60th annual Progressive Architecture Award.

Click to read more ...

Guilt-Free Shopping: Mexico City's Eco-Friendly Underground Mall

San Francisco-based architecture firm, KMD Architects, developed an innovative design for a 700,000 shopping mall with three levels of parking that will be built entirely underground in Mexico City. Directly above it will be the city's Central Park - complete with trees, a jogging track, grass and a performance area.

The mall will be one of Mexico's most sustainable buildings. The green-roof park will insulate the building, reducing air conditioning; on-site solar electric facilities will reduce energy consumption; and massive conical skylights will allow natural light into the building.

The design was the winner of the Design Competition for an Urban Park in Mexico City.

New Estadio Chivas by Jean Marie Massaud and Daniel Pouzet

The new Estadio Chivas by French architects Jean Marie Massaud and Daniel Pouzet of Studio Massaud
officially opened late last month. Located in Guadalajara, Mexico, the stadium was designed
to resemble that of an erupting volcano. Consisting of 45,000 seats the structure is enveloped with sloping parkland that rises up to the stadium's upper reaches. When games are not being played the slopes become a public park.

Keeping with the theme of an erupting volcano, the stadium's white membrane is intended
to look like a cloud hovering above the volcano. Rather than creating a parking lot around the exterior of the stadium the architects chose to incorporate the 8500 parking spaces underneath the sloping sides of the volcano.

[via designboom]