Á L A M O
Outside the big cities, university education options are practically nonexistent, so in the provinces, migration to the capital cities becomes a necessity for young people in search of opportunities. The city of Pachuca, as the state capital, has academic and economic support from the public administration, which allows it to have a university capable of receiving students from all over the state and its surrounding areas. Students, given the lack of supply, have opted to live in houses of social interest and share it among friends, during their stay in this housing the lack of income does not allow them to pay all the services such as internet, water and electricity so the maintenance and furniture are unaffordable.
The distribution of the spaces causes greater efficiency in the work of the personnel and in this way the administrative costs decrease and the fixed income that the client was looking for is multiplied at the same time as offering opportunity to a community that lacks the means to live a dignified life. Projects of this type allow to concentrate specific users detonating interaction creating community, taking advantage of the different schedules and activities the area receives new tenants causing the arrival of better opportunities.
The "Alamo" project begins with conversations with the client about investing in the property to obtain a monthly rent as extra income, in which he proposes to make a warehouse that can function for storage or workshop.
However, after analyzing the site and understanding the context, we identified different potentials than those initially proposed. The location of the property is 1 km from the state university, where the current proposal for student housing does not offer decent sites and the demand requires spaces with low rents, services and security.
Therefore, we initiated conversations to justify the change of use and develop student housing that would cover the client's initial need to obtain a monthly income, now even on a larger scale than projected in the first use proposal.
The controlled access, for the safety of the inhabitants, gives way to a public space with services such as laundry, study and garden; these public uses will be repeated on the rooftop with recreational activities such as gymnasium and living room with dining room. The 3 intermediate levels will be habitable where we will find rooms with natural ventilation and lighting.
One of the main needs of the students is to feel comfortable, so we provide individual private spaces for each one, each room has individual services such as bathroom, kitchenette and bed.
The living levels are repetitive and allow us to design a structural system of transfer slab, with load-bearing walls based on hollow block and stifled structure, allowing us to eliminate the protruding columns, leaving smooth and continuous walls. The interior and exterior finishes are water repellent, requiring low maintenance, improving general conditions and reducing costs.
