Francisco Gonzalez-Pulido, chief designer and president of JAHN, has shared with us his net-zero design proposal for the new Mexico City International Airport competition. Similar to the Norman Foster and Fernando Romero's winning design, JAHN's proposal is a symbiotic blend of sensitive cultural meaning and powerful energy efficiency. As per competition requirements to pair an international firm with a Mexican firm, the project was the result of a collaboration with local architects Francisco Lopez-Guerra of LOGUER and Alonso de Garay of ADG.
As an internationally experienced architect from Mexico, Gonzalez-Pulido was deeply inspired by his heritage throughout the design process. He explained, "More than an efficient and functional machine for transportation, I envisioned an airport as a technological, social and cultural manifest; deeply rooted in the history of the site but also respectful to the life of the Valley of Mexico. I wanted Mexico to be in the forefront of innovation, comparable to our in projects like the Bangkok Airport and Post Tower."
The airport design, features a lightweight and modular roofing system, crafted of twin-wall polycarbonate with nanogel infill between two PTFE layers, which was slated to eliminate glare through uniform transmittance of daylight and cut dependence on artificial light by 90%. A passive, renewable energy system is composed of earth-tube pre-conditioning and a radiant floor system, while a natural wetlands scheme is intended to safely filter rainwater.
According to the architects, the project could be pushed to net-zero carbon levels with the addition of a 700,000 square foot PV system.
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