PRODUCTORA's Monolithic Cultural Center in Mexico

Mexico-city based architecture practice PRODUCTORA has recently completed a monolithic masterpiece that is the Community and Cultural Centre in the small village of Teotitlan del Valle, 31 km outside of Oaxaca city at the foothills of the Sierra Juárez mountain in México.

The building exhibits the archaeological and textile wealth of the local area, housed within a 1700sqm building fit for the largest of metropolises anywhere in the world.

The principal volume, facing the village square, houses the Museum which will host the collections and activities of the current Teotitlán Museum of History. The project is formally governed by the aesthetics of the immediate context, which determine the height of the building, including the colours and the materials employed by the architects. The secondary volume contains the Municipal Library and a service zone.

The area occupied by both buildings on the site represents just 18% of the entire surface area, leaving a large public space for the plaza and the gardens. This strategy helps to improve the pedestrian routes passing across the site and connecting with the main square, inserting the new public spaces created by the Cultural Centre into the circuit of existing plazas that define the urban structure of the village.

The architectural volumes present as austere, neutral façades. The form and material character of the building, including double-slab sloping roofs, 300mm thick concrete walls, and controlled openings, create a passive system that responds to the adverse climatic conditions.

This basic strategy helps to regulate the temperature inside the building and provides users with a comfortable space to read, work or visit the museum. The passive design principles also eliminate the need for installation of air conditioning systems.

The interiors present a diverse range of lighting conditions and spatial qualities, ranging from double and triple-height spaces, generating varying atmospheres for exhibitions and activities. The Cultural Centre uses a minimal palette of locally made materials, such as pigmented concrete, timber, clay tiles and bricks, in order to blend into its context.