QO is a building that connects two streets in Mexico City, spanning an urban block with intense activity. A mixed-use project that includes residential lofts, suites, and offices distributed across 9 levels, each approximately 400 square meters in area with a width of only 10 meters. The project takes shape as a concise response to its urban context, with its narrow, elongated design and façade solution reflecting the surrounding buildings and open spaces adjacent to the site.  A formal language of elongated planes and volumes is repeated at different scales and experiences while the building is inhabited, sometimes as covers or in occasion acting as a frontier between spaces, delimiting intimate programs inside or even demarcating with gestures of urban proportion.

The variations in displacement on each level create terraces and allow different sunlight exposures in each interior space. Light enters and projects itself onto the living areas through tall, wide glass modules, offering remarkable views of Chapultepec Forest and the Paseo de la Reforma skyline.

The building appears narrow and slender when viewed from the front and back façades, while its rougher, more opaque materiality is revealed on the sides. Here, we experimented with different shades, textures, and formats of exposed cast-in-place concrete. Inside, we left the structural elements exposed in their natural state, minimizing finishes and coverings.

A building as slender as QO is not common in the urban layout of Mexico and it was not easy to comply with its codes and regulations. Solving its circulations, accesses and flows was truly a challenge. Nonetheless, seen from above, the building reveals an interesting integration with the roofs, stairs and nearby façades. It becomes part and adds to Mexico City’s diverse urban ambience.