Gold Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2020
Best in Black Multi Unit Housing
- A' Design Award 2020 Gold Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2020
- CLIENT: Valdez Arquitectos
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 46,554
- Verification code A4800636A4 · Verify this award
About Best in Black Multi Unit Housing
Best in Black is a project that aims to create a new kind of residential building. The interior design of the apartments represents industrial design meeting Mexican architecture, the materials selected like wood, concrete and marble give the space a warm look and the palate of colors white and black represent the idea of the facade of the interior design. The four facades are clearly inspired in a random placement of the Tetris game shapes forming the walls and windows of the building, creating lighted atmospheres that generate comfort for the user.
Fernando Valdez's Best in Black Multi Unit Housing represents a compelling exploration of contemporary residential architecture's capacity to contribute meaningfully to established urban environments while asserting a distinctive formal identity. The tower's dark cladding palette, rendered in sophisticated charcoal tones that absorb and modulate ambient light, establishes a deliberate counterpoint to conventional glass-dominant high-rise typologies, suggesting instead an architecture of material presence and tactile solidity. The irregular distribution of glazed openings across the facade surface appears to reference both the organic variation found in historical urban building patterns and contemporary parametric design methodologies, achieving a synthesis that feels neither arbitrarily random nor mechanically repetitive. This fenestration strategy serves multiple experiential functions: from exterior vantage points, the illuminated windows create an ever-changing composition as occupancy patterns shift throughout evening hours, while from within, residents presumably enjoy varied relationships to view, light, and privacy determined by their unit's specific aperture configuration. The architectural choice to employ predominantly warm interior lighting creates a thermal dialogue with the cool exterior palette, suggesting domestic warmth and human habitation within the otherwise monolithic form. Ground-level integration with existing streetscape fabric, visible through the retention of lower vernacular structures and mature tree canopy, demonstrates sensitivity to pedestrian experience and urban continuity. The project invites contemplation of how contemporary residential density might be achieved while contributing visual richness and formal sophistication to the collective urban realm, suggesting that high-rise housing need not represent merely efficient stacking of units but might instead offer opportunities for architectural expression that enriches both individual dwelling experience and broader civic space.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The 19th-floor residential complex Best in Black located in the city of Puebla, Mexico, is a project that aims to create a new kind of residential building. Designing each floor different gave us an opportunity to play with the structure and distribution of the interior spaces, creating atmospheres that generate comfort for the user.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Althought each floor and facade had to be different, we generated a singular size for the glass and marble that would be multiplied to create forms following the function of the structure. We managed to fit those singular pieces to generate interesting and clean perspectives
- Tags
- Architecture, Building, Housing, Tetris, Materials, Facade, Interior, Color
- Production Technology
- The interior design of the apartments reflects industrial design meeting Mexican architecture, the materials selected like wood, concrete and marble give the space a warm look and through the palate of colors white and black represents the idea of the facade of the interior design.
- Design Challenge
- This project was an opportunity to blend the private and public, there are nine different kinds of apartments mixed with the structure and the public spaces, this would make the user feel unique. Playing this tetris game as our original idea, we managed to have a balance of comfort and light in our main facade and the living areas.
- Project Duration
- The project design started in November 2018 and finished in April 2019 in Puebla, Mexico.
- Operation Flow
- While selecting the materials, we thought on contrasts, light and darkness, roughness and clearness. As a consequence, the stucture had to be mixed with the natural materials, the columns and beams divide the space depending on its use creating different heights and circulations.
- Research
- We researched the typical vertical structures in the city and found that glass was the most common material because views to the volcano and the mountains were a priority, we tried to make a balance between transparency and opacity.
- Inspiration
- The facade comes from an idea, the brick game. This old version had the same principals of the nowadays popular game but in a old black and gray version. The four facades are clearly inspired in a random placement of the Tetris game shapes forming the walls and windows of the building, meanwhile the dark tones in the materials is based on the abscene of color in that particular old version that the young future architect treasured for years.
- Image Credits
- Image #1: Night View, Image #2: Lobby, Image #3: Circulations, Image #4: Amenities, Image #5: Living room