Location Arboledas, San Pedro Garza García
Area 500 m²
Construction COE
Lighting LDT
Furniture Altos Espacios, Steelcase, Arper, PM Steel y Forma 5
Photography Arturo Arrieta
Collaborators Diego Montemayor
This fintech company from Monterrey, a financial firm that bases its operations on technology, has been our client for eight years. When we started this project, we were in the midst of the pandemic, and the concept of moving from one place to another for living and working began to be questioned. The challenge was to design a workspace that would be attractive and safe for the “return to normality.”
The goal was to build a sort of extension of the home for the forty employees, who are the driving force of the company and had been working from home for two years. The starting point was a building in the Arboledas area in San Pedro Garza García, with a floor plan of five hundred square meters, complicated ceiling heights, and an old structure. The first thing we did, as always when designing a workspace, was to consider the company’s corporate identity, values, and mission.
In a village called Fuentebuena in Jaén, Spain, there is the largest olive tree in the world. Its enormous branches that grow and diversify constantly, along with the strong roots that hold it firmly, represent the essence of this company’s corporate identity. Their top priority is human capital, their people.
The architectural language had to adapt to the new reality of hybrid work: the office becoming an extension of the home and vice versa. We sought to foster communication and collaboration among users through less rigid workspaces, such as passage areas designed for spontaneous employee encounters, bars, booths, and lounge areas adaptable to various scenarios and uses. The spatial dynamism allowed by technology was a huge ally.
Due to the height restriction, we chose to create a large central space with the exposed coffered slab framed by a copper panel that, together with the routed oak wood ceilings around the perimeter, achieved the spaciousness we were seeking.
A circular amphitheater with felt waves on the ceiling, which enhance both aesthetics and acoustics, adds dynamism to the central space, promoting teamwork. Warm materials like the copper of the interior cornice, oak wood, white wood marble, and natural-colored leather, along with vegetation accents, create a warm, almost homely, youthful, and fresh environment that seeks the well-being of Corporate Fuentebuena’s employees.
