Mixed Use Tower... in San José!?

A few months ago I was shocked when I read this article about an amazing construction planned to be constructed in Sabana Sur... Yes! In our country!

Little by little Costa Rica has some development, at least from an architectural point of view (not the same with fashion and culture). Moho Architects, a spanish firm, proposed the construction of this tower which will rise in San José's skyline, driven by a progressive enviromental strategy for the region.

It has a mixed use program of day and night activities which will include commercial and retail spaces, business centre, offices, conference rooms, hotel floors and a casino. It would have 25 floors and a restaurant with a panoramic views over the city.

As described, "the tower splits and creases independently as it rises into the sky. this 'head split' configuration, permits natural lighting, while sky courts filled with vegetation punctuate at intervals the tower and mitigate the hot climate. the development will take advantage of a number of sustainable energy strategies and key to the energy performance of the building are its wooden brise-soleil facades, designed to filter solar gain and to encourage daylight to permeate the complex. the tower is intended to be a paradigm for passive environmental control, providing an alternative to the more conventional models of sealed and air-conditioned glass stumps. the layered facade cuts air-conditioning load and the plan encourages daylight, reducing the need for artificial lighting. the project is currently in the schematic design phase and is expected to be completed in 2012".

This kind of projects make me feel sometimes that there's hope for this country. There's potencial, but still there's many changes that need to be made. What I really liked about this project is that Moho is proposing a different building, very interesting, with an amazing shape and, besides all this aesthetic characteristics, is thinking about the enviroment, something that is really important in our country because of the conditions and our natural resources.

I just hope that this project won't stay as just images and files on a computer. I think that if we want to stop being a forgotten country we have to start to open our minds to new proposals, to new shapes, to new kinds of constructions that will put us back on the map.