Punching Through a Metal Curtain in

Mexico City
A six-story office building dubbed Profiles by designer Belzberg Architects
has become a local landmark.

September 09, 2019

By TIMOTHY A. SCHULER

https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/architectural-detail/punching-through-a-metal-curtain-in-
mexico-city_o

In Mexico City, a carbon-steel veil draped over the south and east façades of a
six-story structure is the latest dynamic skin from Belzberg Architects. At Profiles, the
Santa Monica, Calif.–based firm’s second project for Mexico City developer Grupo
Anima, the perforated metal cladding doubles as a sunshade and privacy screen, while
also turning a spec office building into a local landmark.

Typically, says Belzberg partner Brock DeSmit, developers want the side
elevations of new buildings left plain, figuring they will be obscured by neighboring
structures in the future. "That portion of the building that’s exposed above the adjacent
smaller building ends up being a big, blank façade," he says. "It’s a huge contributor to
the urban experience.” Profiles subverts this functionalist approach. The architects
decided to pull the majority of the six-story building’s mass away from the southern lot
line and to add an open-air space on the second floor, creating a highly visible building
with significant southern exposure, which the architects wanted to leverage.

To craft the façades, the team worked closely with local steel fabricator El Roble
and studied the site at length. “We situated ourselves on the sidewalk ... and asked,
‘What is going to be the perception of this mass from the street?’ ” DeSmit says. “There
was an interplay between sculpting that metal façade and then tweaking the glass and
concrete to adjust to it, and then tweaking the glass and concrete from the inside due to
the structure and layout, and adjusting the metal façade as a result.”

A similar interplay took place in Belzberg's office. The firm’s projects tend to
carry the fingerprints of the project’s lead designers, DeSmit says, and in this case,
much of the architecture was driven by the interests of DeSmit and his then-colleague
Joseph Ramiro, particularly during the ideation process. “Maybe you do a 3D model on
the computer, but then you lay it out in 2D, and overlay a 2D pattern, then project it
back onto a 3D surface,” DeSmit says. “And it’s that interplay between 2D and 3D that
unique moments start to emerge.”

The resulting skin, which is 50% opaque, wraps the concrete-and-glass building
and arches over the second-floor terrace to provide views out. Totaling 400 flat, curved,
or double-curved steel panels, it covers a surface area of 6,865 square feet. While the
perforations were randomized using parametric design software, the designers created
a secondary pattern through the addition of 13,000 carbon-steel “chads”—2.5-inch to
4-inch discs angling outward between 10 degrees and 60 degrees—that imbue a
reflective quality throughout the day. Each chad was welded by hand at its specified
location and angle.

Mock-ups built by El Roble were crucial to honing the gauge of the carbon steel,
the maximum diameter of the openings, and the sizes of the panels, which are 3 feet
wide, 4 feet to 8 feet tall, and 0.2 inch thick. “We would study shadows, how much
shading [the mock-up] is producing, what sort of views it's allowing,” DeSmit says. The
mock-ups also determined the tightest radii permitted by the cold-bent steel, and
highlighted the cost and time required to manufacture double-curved panels, which then
drove a simplification of the façade geometry.

That the façade reads as a singular, diaphanous skin is testament to the team’s
attention to detail. In places, the circular openings intersect or span panel edges, which,
despite adding another level of complexity to the fabrication process, was necessary to
achieve the continuous look and feel of the façade. “We were trying to contain
everything within each panel, but ultimately we realized that you could read that too
much,” DeSmit says. “So we worked with the fabricator on how we can have elements
that don’t terminate right at the panel edge, but that carry over. That’s actually a pretty
nice detail.”

On the building’s east elevation, the panels attach to a structural steel tube frame
via metal angles, bolted through the panel’s return flanges. On the southern façade, the
panels attach to a series of steel-tube maintenance walkways that run between the metal
panels and the building’s storefront glazing. Here, the panels tie back to the concrete
floor plates via a continuous, embedded steel plate. To ensure accurate placement,
Belzberg worked with El Roble and Grupo Anima, which also served as general
contractor, to outline the assembly process and assign each panel an alphanumeric code.

Although he still ruminates over some design decisions, DeSmit is proud of the
project and its contribution to Belzberg’s growing Mexico City portfolio. Last
December, the entire office flew to Profiles for Grupo Anima’s holiday party and
experienced the finished project from inside. “To wander through the building,” DeSmit
says, “and come across different moments that we spent so much time thinking about
and anticipating is really awesome.”