Architect：RAG Arquitectos

Location：San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo Leon, Mexico; | ;View Map

Project Year：2023

Category：Shops

The cosmetics store, “Ahal Arboleda” represents a symbiosis between purity, community and the pride of being Mexican. The use of ancestral ingredients, endemic and produced by Mayan communities in their beauty products, convinced us to look for a unifying symbol that encompasses the context, the materials, the culture, the community and the spirit: the “cenote”. This natural phenomenon represents the gateway to the gods in the Mayan culture, where offerings of these precious ingredients are made. These rituals and its materiality make the Cenote the rational base that sustains our concept. Each element was studied to transform and integrate it figuratively in our proposal: the stalactites and stalagmites, the body of water with a predominantly circular shape and the opening with zenithal light. All the materiality is encompassed in the various presentations of earth: sand, quartz, rocks and clay. When transmuting to the functional uses of the store, we divided it into two fundamental areas: makeup and skin care. 

The “sink”, assimilating the body of water, becomes the ideal space for skin care products, while the “dome”, evoking the skylights of the cenotes, acts as an optimal light disperser for the make-up area. The counter imitates stalactites and stalagmites, highlighting the importance and value of each item, and connects the two functional areas. The walls with handmade clay pieces assimilating the shapes of caves and the floor with mechanized clay, are a demonstration of the great use we make of earth-based materials in our country. 

This architectural project is a tribute to our ancestral Mexican roots and our aspiration to highlight it at the highest level. We want to show that Mexican design and products are not valuable because they are rustic, poor or limited, but because they are prestigious, elegant and historical, of great admiration. Ahal Arboleda is, therefore, more than a commercial space; it is an experience that connects each visitor with the richness and depth of Mexican culture.

Architects: RAG Architects

Principal Architect: Guillermo Durán Suárez

Design team (credits): 

Alejandra Roman

Andrea Almaguer

Karla Valeria

Julio Alberto Gonzalez

Collaborators:

Juan Carlos Boesch

Mauricio Boesch

Photography: Recording Architecture

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