San Antonio Plaza is conceived as a linear commercial hub that acts as a colorful urban façade along one of Cancún’s main access roads. The design emphasizes horizontality and movement, using a continuous canopy and a vibrant graphic band to frame retail activity while creating a recognizable landmark. The architecture operates as an urban screen, capturing attention from fast vehicular flows and transforming it into a welcoming, pedestrian-oriented experience at ground level.
The project articulates a clear contrast between a calm, white structural envelope and a dynamic, chromatic upper zone dedicated to branding and communication. This dual reading allows the building to accommodate changing tenants and campaigns while preserving a coherent architectural identity anchored in clean, contemporary lines.
The plaza is organized as a single elongated volume, protected by a cantilevered roof that projects significantly towards the avenue, emphasizing linearity and providing deep shade to the storefronts. Structural supports are minimized and expressed as slender, dark-colored columns, enhancing transparency and visual continuity across the ground floor.
The façade is resolved with large-format glazing, creating a visual dialogue between interior retail spaces and the exterior public realm. Above this transparent base, a continuous band accommodates digital or printed signage, conceived as a controlled “media façade.” A stone-clad backdrop and vegetated strip on the upper level offer a warm counterpoint to the technological character of the graphic band, rooting the building in the local material context.
The interior is organized as a sequence of flexible commercial modules aligned along a continuous circulation spine parallel to the avenue. The open structural grid allows for different tenant sizes, from large anchor stores to smaller specialty shops, ensuring long-term adaptability to evolving commercial needs.
At ground level, generous overhangs and a widened sidewalk create an intermediate climatic buffer zone functioning as a covered gallery. This semi-exterior strip encourages window-shopping, supports outdoor displays, and provides shaded waiting and meeting areas without obstructing the visual field of the storefronts.
Located between the dense green landscape of Cancún and a high-traffic roadway, the plaza mediates between natural and urban environments. The building’s low profile respects the horizontal character of the surroundings and preserves long views toward the vegetation beyond.
Landscaped parterres with palms and low shrubs structure the setback between roadway and commercial strip, softening the transition from asphalt to architecture. The curved geometry of the sidewalks and planted islands echoes the fluidity of traffic, while integrating stormwater infiltration areas into the landscape design.
The material palette combines white plastered surfaces, large glass panes, natural stone, and metallic framing. The white and neutral tones enhance daylight reflection, contributing to a bright yet controlled interior ambience. At night, the building transforms through integrated LED lighting in the signage band and warm interior illumination, turning the plaza into a luminous beacon along the avenue.
The absence of excessive façade ornamentation leaves prominence to light, graphics, and merchandise as the main protagonists. This approach enables a contemporary and adaptable aesthetic, where the architecture functions as an elegant and efficient support for commercial expression.
The project responds to Cancún’s tropical climate through passive design measures. The extended roof overhang and the recessed shopfronts reduce direct solar gain on glazing, lowering cooling demands while enhancing user comfort in the shaded exterior gallery. Clear zoning between conditioned interiors and semi-open circulation areas optimizes energy use.
Landscape elements along the road and building perimeter are designed to aid stormwater management, using permeable surfaces and planting beds to facilitate infiltration and reduce runoff. The selection of durable, low-maintenance materials such as stone cladding and aluminum framing supports longevity in a saline coastal environment, while the modular structure and flexible floor plans allow future reconfiguration without significant demolition, contributing to the plaza’s long-term environmental and economic sustainability.
San Antonio Plaza is conceived as a linear commercial hub that acts as a colorful urban façade along one of Cancún’s main access roads. The design emphasizes horizontality and movement, using a continuous canopy and a vibrant graphic band to frame retail activity while creating a recognizable landmark. The architecture operates as an urban screen, capturing attention from fast vehicular flows and transforming it into a welcoming, pedestrian-oriented experience at ground level.
The project articulates a clear contrast between a calm, white structural envelope and a dynamic, chromatic upper zone dedicated to branding and communication. This dual reading allows the building to accommodate changing tenants and campaigns while preserving a coherent architectural identity anchored in clean, contemporary lines.
The plaza is organized as a single elongated volume, protected by a cantilevered roof that projects significantly towards the avenue, emphasizing linearity and providing deep shade to the storefronts. Structural supports are minimized and expressed as slender, dark-colored columns, enhancing transparency and visual continuity across the ground floor.
The façade is resolved with large-format glazing, creating a visual dialogue between interior retail spaces and the exterior public realm. Above this transparent base, a continuous band accommodates digital or printed signage, conceived as a controlled “media façade.” A stone-clad backdrop and vegetated strip on the upper level offer a warm counterpoint to the technological character of the graphic band, rooting the building in the local material context.
The interior is organized as a sequence of flexible commercial modules aligned along a continuous circulation spine parallel to the avenue. The open structural grid allows for different tenant sizes, from large anchor stores to smaller specialty shops, ensuring long-term adaptability to evolving commercial needs.
At ground level, generous overhangs and a widened sidewalk create an intermediate climatic buffer zone functioning as a covered gallery. This semi-exterior strip encourages window-shopping, supports outdoor displays, and provides shaded waiting and meeting areas without obstructing the visual field of the storefronts.
Located between the dense green landscape of Cancún and a high-traffic roadway, the plaza mediates between natural and urban environments. The building’s low profile respects the horizontal character of the surroundings and preserves long views toward the vegetation beyond.
Landscaped parterres with palms and low shrubs structure the setback between roadway and commercial strip, softening the transition from asphalt to architecture. The curved geometry of the sidewalks and planted islands echoes the fluidity of traffic, while integrating stormwater infiltration areas into the landscape design.
The material palette combines white plastered surfaces, large glass panes, natural stone, and metallic framing. The white and neutral tones enhance daylight reflection, contributing to a bright yet controlled interior ambience. At night, the building transforms through integrated LED lighting in the signage band and warm interior illumination, turning the plaza into a luminous beacon along the avenue.
The absence of excessive façade ornamentation leaves prominence to light, graphics, and merchandise as the main protagonists. This approach enables a contemporary and adaptable aesthetic, where the architecture functions as an elegant and efficient support for commercial expression.
The project responds to Cancún’s tropical climate through passive design measures. The extended roof overhang and the recessed shopfronts reduce direct solar gain on glazing, lowering cooling demands while enhancing user comfort in the shaded exterior gallery. Clear zoning between conditioned interiors and semi-open circulation areas optimizes energy use.
Landscape elements along the road and building perimeter are designed to aid stormwater management, using permeable surfaces and planting beds to facilitate infiltration and reduce runoff. The selection of durable, low-maintenance materials such as stone cladding and aluminum framing supports longevity in a saline coastal environment, while the modular structure and flexible floor plans allow future reconfiguration without significant demolition, contributing to the plaza’s long-term environmental and economic sustainability.
Our offices are located in Barcelona, Cancún, Chicago and Santo Domingo, but thanks to technology we can do projects on all over the world.
Barcelona
Bac de Roda 136
08020, Barcelona
Spain
Madrid
Av. de Buendía 11
19005 Guadalajara (Madrid)
Spain
Chicago
373 Hazel Ave, Apt A1
60022, Glencoe, Illinois
United States