Women's shelter in Uruapan wins international recognition

The work was recognized in the finalists of the category commercial/institutional architecture of more than 1000 m2 in the contest of the Canadian magazine of Design and Architecture Azure, where participated 997 architects and designers of 46 countries.

 

Violence against women in Mexico has reached epidemic levels. This situation persists, according to the UN, despite the approval of severe laws to curb it and is often related to organized crime.

In this context arises the need to conceive spaces to fulfill new architectural programs. This is the case of this refuge for women in Uruapan − The second most important city and the second most populated in the state of Michoacán − a place that has been affected by the wave of violent events at the state level.

The work was recognized in the finalists of the category commercial/institutional architecture of more than 1000 m2 in the contest of the Canadian magazine of Design and Architecture Azure, where participated 997 architects and designers of 46 countries.

Its creators, the signature Origin 19, 41 ' 53 ' ' N of the architects Omar and Hugo González Pérez, are originating in the city of Mexico, but they lie for several years in Morelia, Michoacán and they conceive the architecture like "The art with which the population reaches and sublimates it s Ensible, helping people to remember and practice, to be human. "

Under this idea was conceived the refuge, a space to give temporary home to 36 women, a site of coexistence and recovery that has a clinic and a therapy area. The architects explained that this space was designed as a shelter where the woman victim of violence could feel protected and in turn the open spaces and the light helped to create an environment conducive to both their recovery and to the learning of Some trade with a view to their reincorporation into society.

The various functional components were organized by a movement that runs in a zigzag form along the 3.978 square-metre plot of rectangular shape. The volumetry, the colors and the scale, remember the architectural vocabulary of Ricardo Legorreta, or even Luis Barragán.  Yellow predominates, contrasting with the darkness of Access: "The door to the building is black because it symbolically reflects the state in which a battered woman arrives, in total darkness, but at the end of that aisle there is a yellow painted patio that is Intensifies with sunlight and is a symbol of light and hope. "

The building was built with the possibility of extending, housing more spaces to cater to more women victims of gender-based violence. "It is a shelter, protective space, an introspective building because from the facade closes outward, but inward opens… are four bays of building and each opens on all sides, each space in turn opens to a verd area E, "said Hugo Gonzalez.

This building managed to be among the six finalists of constructions in countries such as China, Paris, Toronto and Brazil. Although the project did not win, the architects highlighted this nomination as an international recognition. "The culture of effort is fundamental, this is already a recognition to be finalists after 13 years of continuous work," said Omar.

Certainly an achievement for Mexican architecture that shows a national reality that we cannot be proud of.