Mixed-Used Complex "Paseo 60"

Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

Photo © Arq. Enrique Cabrera

Photo © Arq. Tamara Uribe

Architects: Duarte Aznar Arquitectos

Location: Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico
Year: 2017

The main objective of the commission was to create a set of buildings that would offer for rent the necessary surface area for various uses: Yucatecan gastronomy, a gourmet market, two hotels with 260 rooms, corporate offices, space for a cultural forum, a trova museum yucateca and the necessary services for all of the above; operational freedom of the hotels and flexible and eventually differentiated operation of the various areas, all enjoying the common spaces.

The square, a public space par excellence, is generously presented here. It is equipped with vegetation and is bordered virtually towards the corner by a series of bishops covered with vines that are interrupted to mark the main accesses from each of the streets. Towards the interior it is bounded by a portico that offers a shady, friendly and public shortcut; transition between the hot outside and the cool inside. It is partially covered by a glass and steel parasol.

The design of the latticework and the serigraphy recall the once quasi-infinite henequen plantations, which in their heyday - which among other actions allowed the creation of Paseo Montejo - covered a good part of the state's soil as a blue-green blanket.