Komplex | Valdez Arquitectos

Located in the most vigorous district of the city of Puebla, a corporate and cultural zone that houses projects of great relevance and vanguard, Komplex Tower rises as a landmark and plays a key role in the urban strategy southwest of the city. Komplex is a development that takes advantage of its mixed uses program in order to bring dynamism to its immediate urban situation. The project, by the young architecture firm Valdez Arquitectos, breaks up with the establishments of rigid form in architecture and, furthermore, generates an exchange between the arts through the incorporation of mural painting and sculpture in the built space.

A fifteen-storey high tower with concave facings appears to grow from a two-storey podium that houses commercial spaces and restaurants. A continuous volume in the shape of an “L” frames the complex while reflecting with another shorter volume, embracing the pedestrian and car accesses. Both volumes, despite their different scales and proportions, blend in harmony through the crownings of its cornises, fractal patterns pierced in aluminium sheet which, at nightfall, lighten up as abstract constellations that make contrast with the reflecting void of the glass wall façades.

At street level, the access can be perceived as a permeable urban continuity that aims to make blurry the limits between the city and the complex. The pedestrian and vehicular flows are clearly marked. On one side, there is an immediate pedestrian access leading to the commercial building of lesser size. This building acts independently from the complex with its levels sharply outlined and its exterior circulations covered by glass railings. On the opposite side, the building that conforms the “L” shaped podium, marks the pedestrian flows to the tower by the means of a pergola that guards from direct sunlight and, when meeting the corner, acts as a motor lobby for the tower. The perpendicular wing of the podium is conformed by a double-storey space that enables multiple commercial occupation. Elements of urban furniture such as benches and street lights, as well as greenery, invite the user to relax and encourage the use of public space.

The majority of the access level is destined for car parking in order to make out the most of the available space. In this sense, the idle walls were used to integrate an unexpected aesthetic experience to the complex through art. In the north side of the parking lot, a mural entitled Love vs Money was made by Kai, an American urban artist. The painting makes a sharp critique addressing the consumer economy and the inherent value of things using a friendly and contemporary plastic language that is playful and pop. A single basement level, measuring 6,000 m2, adds up for the required parking space and, as in the upper level, uses its walls for mural painting, this time by Mexican artists that share their local cultural expressions through their artistic work.

The tower’s access lobby consists of a transparent three-story space which only material on the inside are marble tiles -in contrasting colours - and a few wooden details; resulting in a container of shadows and reflections that invites the user to contemplate the space and interact with the art pieces it houses. Through the glass, a green wall can be seen in the back. It makes up for a cooler ambiance in the reception area. Going up from the basement level, the lobby is crowned by another mural painting by the British urban art collective ‘The London Police’. These painting, flanked by the automatic bands that communicate the basement and lobby levels, summarizes the urban quality of the city of Puebla. It traces a silhouette where the historic and the contemporary find harmony and where Komplex Tower has a presence and coexists with recognizable and important landmarks. The discourse is framed by the representation of the people that build the daily life of the city. The space is complemented by sculptures by the plastic artists Richard Orlinsky and Elena Bulatova. These sculptures are conceptual representations of animals and industrial products and are fresh and subversive works that synchronize with the building’s architectural values.

The structure of the building is resolved in an efficient and rational manner that enables an open floor plan to be used as offices in all its levels and also allows the distortion of the building envelope without compromising its stability, so that it can take part in the city’s discourse.  A structural core made of reinforced concrete houses the vertical circulations and gives way to the structural frames that bears the joist and beam slabs and transfer the loads to the deep foundations, 14 meters below the access level. The curtain wall that contains the interior space allows for continuous natural lighting and adds up for a sense of lightness, also allowing for natural ventilation in specific spaces.

The buildings remarks its presence in the skyline being outlined by a laminated edge that makes it appear as if it was drawn, a flat projection in the three-dimensional physical space. Two extruded steel frames in the main façade break with the monotony of the curtain wall and add a gesture of asymmetry and depth. The tower enables spectacular views of the landscape from its middle and high rise levels and particularly from the great hall in the penthouse, a multi-functional space with a terrace opened towards the sky that connects directly to the heliport. The panoramic view of the landscape remarks the urban condition of Komplex from which the limits between city and nature seem to dissolve. The perceived territory covers the complex fabric in which the tower is immersed and makes contrast with the geography of the Puebla valley, framed by the ubiquitous volcanoes. The complex enables spaces for a humanistic form of work and dwelling in tune with the contemporary productive mechanisms without leaving aside the cultural expressions and natural conditions it relies on.