Gleco Building
Gleco Building
For Tijuana, a world where stacks of old tires serve as retaining walls, function over aesthetic has traditionally reigned as the golden rule. But lately the latter has been giving the former a run for its money.
The Casa de Ideas, or the House of Ideas, would be best rebaptized as the Little Library that Could. Only a few months old, the 2,300-square foot digital biblioteca in Camino Verde—one of Tijuana’s poorest neighborhoods, prone to heavy flooding—already totes a plot fit for its very own telenovela. Designed by New School of Architecture and Design instructors Adriana Cuéllar and Marcel Sánchez, it won Architecture Magazine’s Progressive Architecture Award almost as soon as it opened, only to be commandeered less than a week later by a representative of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, who planned to repurpose it as an unemployment center. Community outrage backed by a citywide Facebook storm ultimately saved the building, which for now is open to the public weekend afternoons.
Casa de Ideas
Casa de Ideas
Summer brings Tijuana architect Jorge Gracia Garcia’s latest addition to his collection of Baja structural beauts, which include TJ’s sleek Culinary Art School and the hip Hotel Endémico in Valle de Guadalupe. To assemble Casa GS, a residential structure made up of oxidized metal cubes floating atop walls of glass, Gracia stuck to easily accessible, low-cost materials and artisanal labor. The house will debut at one spot of the pop-up exhibition Art Baja Tijuana by L.A. gallery Steve Turner Contemporary, happening around TJ July 18–21.
Notice the crimson paint job on the four repurposed shipping containers of the Gleco building. But the real beauty of the three-story office space in Colonia Revolución is its solar panels and eolic wind turbine, concepts that are just taking root south of the border. Designed by TJ native Jonatan Gleason, the hybrid system generates up to 5,000 watts of electricity on a typical day. The structure requires only 4,000 watts, however, while the rest flows back into the grid. Como se dice, “Share and share alike?”
