https://www.architecturalrecord.com/rss/3575 en-us http://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/17087 Tue, 10 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/17087-atelier-ars-blends-modernism-classicism-and-regional-vernacular-with-a-house-in-the-mountains-of-central-mexico “The acrobatic novelty of much of today’s architecture doesn’t interest us,” says Alejandro Guerrero. He and Andrea Soto describe themselves as traditionalists, with one caveat: their tradition is modernism.

]]> http://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/11366 Tue, 01 Dec 2015 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/11366-atelier-ars-guadalajara-mexico Atelier AR Atelier ARS˚ Photo © Erick Fernández TID Annex TID Annex The small building at the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiore de Occidente is used by architects and design students for applying paints and varnishes. To provide adequate ventilation, the architects designed it as a large flue. Its steel frame is fitted with oversize doors that are themselves covered in pinewood louvers. With light filtering between the louvers, the low-cost structure looks more like a Japanese teahouse than a shed with utilitarian functions. Photo © Onnis Luque TID Annex TID Annex The small building at the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiore de Occidente is used by architects and design students for applying paints and varnishes. To provide adequate ventilation, the architects designed it as a large flue. Its steel frame is fitted with oversize doors that are themselves covered in pinewood louvers. With light filtering between the louvers, the low-cost structure looks more like a Japanese teahouse than a shed with utilitarian functions. Photo © Onnis Luque Mine the Gap Mine the Gap When the Chicago Architectural Club solicited ideas for using the vast round hole dug for an unrealized Santiago Calatrava spire, ARSº responded with plans for a columbarium reached by a spiral stairway, which they conceived as a “sacred space for the city.” Its resemblance to the Pantheon is the kind of connection between buildings of different styles and eras that the architects have dubbed “intertectonicity.” Photo © Erick Fernández  Levering Trade Levering Trade In a warehouse for a marketer of electronic devices, the architects referenced 20th-century industrial buildings with sawtooth roofs, in this case emphasizing the “teeth” by exposing steel beams on the articulated front facade (which is made of cement panels and corrugated metal). In a simple yet effective formal move, they reversed the northernmost sawtooth to give symmetry (and thus importance) to the portion of the building containing meeting rooms for employees and clients. Photo © Onnis Luque  Levering Trade Levering Trade Photo © Onnis Luque  Levering Trade Levering Trade Photo © Onnis Luque  Orange County Memorial Orange County Memorial Avoiding what they see as a trend toward arbitrariness, ARSº prefers to work with architectural elements that it considers elegant and timeless. In this case, for a crime victims’ memorial, those elements are the stela and the burial mound. They arranged 10 stelae (each lined in bronze) on one mound to create a linear void as a shimmering space of remembrance. Rendering courtesy Atelier ARSº Orange County Memorial Orange County Memorial Rendering courtesy Atelier ARSº Novasem Grainery Novasem Grainery Novasem, a company engaged in the production and processing of corn, commissioned this plant on the outskirts of Guadalajara. A pair of granaries in Cor-Ten steel is as monolithic as Richard Serra sculptures, positioned to create a linear space reminiscent of the architects’ Orange County Memorial. Other buildings similarly frame and inflect nature. “A project of industrial architecture can become a landscape project,” says Soto. Photo © Onnis Luque TID Annex TID Annex The small building at the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiore de Occidente is used by architects and design students for applying paints and varnishes. To provide adequate ventilation, the architects designed it as a large flue. Its steel frame is fitted with oversize doors that are themselves covered in pinewood louvers. With light filtering between the louvers, the low-cost structure looks more like a Japanese teahouse than a shed with utilitarian functions. Photo © Onnis Luque House and Studio in Mar Chapálico House and Studio in Mar Chapálico The concrete roofs of this 230-square-meter house collect rainwater and send it along the pavement to form a shallow reflecting pool, mimicking the rivulets and ponds of the nearby mountains. The house also references the textile-making tradition of the region, using panels of woven palo dulce wood to control light and privacy. Photo © Onnis Luque Meis House and Studio in Mar Chapálico House and Studio in Mar Chapálico Photo © Onnis Luque House and Studio in Mar Chapálico House and Studio in Mar Chapálico Image courtesy Atelier ARS House and Studio in Mar Chapálico House and Studio in Mar Chapálico Image courtesy Atelier ARS House with Seven Courtyards House with Seven Courtyards The architects encouraged their clients to save an existing house, making only small modifications to its white stucco walls. Then they added an entry and dining pavilion framed in steel (as if Mies had come for a visit to the countryside), but infilled it with concrete vaults that reinterpret local masonry traditions. Photo © Onnis Luque courtyard House with Seven Courtyards Photo © Onnis Luque Mine the Gap Mine the Gap Rendering by Erick Fernández Novasem Granary  Novasem Granary Photo © Onnis Luque