Extract from the presentation of Belén Moneo as president of the jury of the 2017 FAD awards.
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Next weekend, 14-15-16 July, we will be in Jaén participating in INTERVENTIONS 4. An independent project organized by Isidro Blasco, who invited 12 artists to take part in the different spaces of the "casa de la Grisa" that is in Calle Higueras Sabater # 6, en Sabiote, Jaén, Spain.
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Our Thermal Baths “Termas de Tiberio”, awarded Best of Year 2009, is in the cover of Decade of Design; a 10-year collection of architecture and design projects by Interior Design magazine. It also features our Espacio Fundación Telefónica in Madrid, awarded Best of Year “Culture” 2012.
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Jaime Lorente OPENING 25 May, 20h (c/ Benigno Soto 14, Madrid)
The work at Space to Be (_2B) is the result of a sum of different operations with which Jaime Lorente has been working over the past five years.
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Our 'Parquet' carpet goes to Lisbon!
It will be part of the exhibition "Novo Mundo" at the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência. Open from April 22nd to July 2nd.
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This weekend is Open House Monterrey, an architecture festival offering tours of buildings in this Mexican city. Our parish church in Pueblo Serena is included in the event and Claudia Harari (responsible of the landscape design with Harari Landscape) will guide the tour of our project.
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Ya estamos de vuelta de Milán, muy agradecidos por el 1er Premio en la categoría de edificios Religiosos con la Parroquia en Pueblo Serena en los Archmarathon Awards SELECTIONS@MADE!
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On Tuesday February 14th at 8PM MONDO GALERIA presents the sofa Sonia D designed by Belén Moneo for the brand ECUS Sleep. This sofa is surrounded by the photographs of the exhibition "Legendary" by Terry O'Neill, with portraits to some of the most iconic figures from the 60's to the 90's.
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Moneo Brock has designed a new product for the gallery Casa Gutierrez Nájera which will be exhibited at the Mexican art fair Zona MACO (February 8-12th).
SOULBOX is a colorful cabinet made of acrylic glass.
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Our Parish Church in Pueblo Serena won Interior Design magazine's Best of Year (BoY) award in the Projects: Institutional category. Thanks to the Magazine and to all who collaborated, professionals and artists with whom we worked on this project: Artemio Garza, Gabriela Pulido, Irene Alberdi, Harari Landscape Architecture, Valerie Sauthier, Francisco Leiro, Carmen Pinart, Pedro Cuní, Axioma, RGT Ingeniería, Grupo Termo Control, Artemide, Arau Acoustic and the teams at Moneo Brock, Pueblo Serena and Plaza Huajuco.
On December the 3rd we traveled to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to present our project for this emblematic place, developed together with Rafael Moneo and Harari Landscape Architecture. Our principal objectives are to recuperate the space surrounding the Puerta de Don Diego, a worthy historical landmark, to eliminate architectural barriers and to create areas of shade, providing new areas for rest.
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Our carpet "Parquet" has been chosen as a finalist in the 5th Iberoamerican Design Bienal (BID16). We invite you to attend to the exhibition organized by Dimad at Matadero Madrid, from November 21st until February 2017.
We are optimistic that our house for the TEC of Monterrey will be certified LEED Gold. Energy efficiency has been a priority in our design from the very beginning. The house is half-buried to benefit from the earth's thermal inertia and a series of shady courtyards generate microclimates that help maintain a comfortable temperature. Besides providing for generous cross ventilation, the house is oriented so that solar incidence is optimized. Canopies and vertical screens protect façade openings from excessive insolation, while on the roof photovoltaic panels capture solar radiation and shade the building mass below.
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Invited for her work on the rooftop playground at the Hospital "12 de Octubre" in Madrid, Belén Moneo participated on October 21st Belén Moneo in a discussion on "Neuro-Architecture" during the XXXIV Spanish National Congress of Health Care Engineering. She spoke of spatial qualities, their impact on perception and the benefits they offer patients. The image is of a project by Olafur Eliasson which Belén used as an example in her talk. You can read the whole conference talk after the jump.
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The exhibition "Letters to the Mayor" at COAM, the Madrid iteration of the project promoted by Eva Franch of New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture, ended on October the 28th. It was a great experience to curate this project alongside Enorme Studio. The 75 letters written by local architects and addressed to the mayor of Madrid have interested many visitors. You can now read them online using this link. (Photo by Javier de Paz García.)
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Enorme Estudio + Moneo Brock: Local curators of the exhibition
The exhibition "Letters to the Mayor", promoted and curated by Eva Franch (Storefront for Art and Architecture), will present letters from Madrid-based architects addressed to the city's mayor, with innovative ideas and visions for the city. This idea was born in NYC in 2014 and since then it has been carried out in several cities. In Madrid's edition we participate as local curators alongside Enorme Estudio. The exhibition opens on September 29th at 12PM at COAM during the Architecture Week. See you there!
Visit to Mexico
Finally, the West façade and the bell tower of the parish church in Monterrey are finished. In the picture you can see the location of the church surrounded by the landscape designed by our collaborators Harari Landscape, whose outstanding work will be completed in 2017.
Hotel Mercer
Our architecture and interior design project for the Hotel Mercer in Barcelona's Gothic neighborhood has been awarded with the Honorable Mention in the category of "Hospitality".
Dialogue between Spain and Mexico
Jeffrey Brock participated on September 1st in the third edition of Arquideas at Mexico City in a dialogue about public space, architectural heritage and sustainability in cities, where architects from Mexico and Spain shared ideas and perspectives.
House in Mexico
Last July in Monterrey we presented our schematic design for the House 205, designed alongside Daniel Roselló.This house will be raffled by the Technological University of Monterrey (TEC) in order to "sponsor educational growth through the program ´Leaders of Tomorrow`, which gives full scholarchips to students with scarce economic resources and high acdemic performance".
Jeff Brock Lectures
Jeff brock gave a lecture at the Universidad Autónoma de Cuernavaca on working methods and the transformative capacity of architectural projects at MEXTROPOLI, the International Festival on Architecture and the City and the Latin American forum that gathered thousands of people for 4 days. The city of Mexico was, from March 5th – 8th, the most important place for thinking, designing and enjoying critical activities through a series of conferences, talks and workshops. Click here
We would like to emphasize our enthusiasm for the presentations of Josep Bohigas, who put forth myriad ways of resolving various housing problems, and that of Raúl Cardenas from Tijuana, whose projects with Torolab are always inspiring for their extraordinary degree of humanity.
Josep Bohigas Talk
Round-table
Belén Moneo and Jeff Brock participated in a round-table discussion on prefabricated buildings on April 7 th in Madrid, organized by Sergio Baragaño (barchitects) and moderated by Marisa Santamaría. Architecture is possibly the discipline most committed to industry and technology; searching for efficiency and savings in the constructive process, we support standardized production systems. Taking advantadge of our experience designing a house of minimum dimensions, we sought to break free of the language of the container-box, seeking a versatile solution while still observing the constraints imposed by the need to transport the house from factory to site.
New product design
Our Sofa SONIA D, with neat clear lines and intense color, has been selected for the Exhibition Producto Fresco 2016, opening Wed. June 15th in Madrid.
ICON is the new collection from ECUS Sleep S.L.U of armchairs, sofas and sofa-beds featuring striking fabrics, elegant shapes and fabulous designs.
Refurbishment of a courtyard in the historical City of Santo Domingo
The developer and architecture connaisseur, Claudio Suarez Tarrado, has given us the opportunity to work on his project “Casa Velázquez”. Our participation is focused on the refurbishment of pre-existing elements, built in different periods and with different methods, harmonizing the building group by applying a unique architectural language. MONEO BROCK will be responsible for selecting finishes. Refurbishment is a fascinating exercise that, together with urban consolidation, constitutes architecture’s principal mode of action within the historical city’s fabric.
Nominated with the chimney Articulare
The Articulare chimney designed by Moneo Brock for DAE Chimeneas has been nominated for the Delta Awards 2016. The Delta Prizes celebrate superior quality design, highlighting its importance as a driver of an industrial economy and its fundamental role as an expression of our social and cultural values. Behind every design object is the work of several professionals who have dutifully considered the final user and the manufacturing process.
MONEO BROCK and the architect Daniel Roselló have been selected to design together House 205 for the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, México, which will be raffled to support the scholarships "Lideres del Mañana".These scholarships are specifically directed to promising youths, who are seen as "Tomorrow´s Leaders".
Calle Benigno Soto, 14
28002 Madrid
+34 915 638 056
HARARI LANDSCAPE & ARCHITECTURE
José Clemente Oriozco, 329. Pisco 30
colonia Valle oriente, CP 66269
San Pedro Garza García, NL
mx@moneobrock.com
6 Varick St. Unit 10B
New York, Ny 10013
+1 (212) 380 1560
ny@moneobrock.com
APAREJADORES ACC
Calle Casimiro de Moya
Residencial Plaza Independencia
Edificio E-202
Gazcue, Distrito Nacional, Santo Domingo
rd@moneobrock.com
Moneo Brock is an international architectural, planning and design firm of versatile professionals committed to the identification and implementation of sustainable solutions, with great faith in the promise of good design. We are an ISO9001:2008 certified business with Lloyds Register.
We begin our work with a rigorous analysis of the functional requirements of the project in question, setting high standards for the optimization of resources. Convinced that a fundamental concept must be elaborated for each project, we design specifically architectural solutions wherein linguistic and spatial structures harmonize in a coherent whole.
When working in cities, we count as the projects’ first task the repair or enhancement of the existing urban context and the enlivening of bordering streets. We give great importance to urban design and to the creation of public space as a social good.
When working outside the city, we design our interventions to protect and preserve the natural beauty that we find; the new, constructed landscape is designed to flow from our projects and connect holistically to the surrounding terrain.
Each project’s local climate is analyzed in detail so that energy efficiency can be assured, and the social and economic context is thoughtfully reviewed so that all conditions for true sustainability can be met. Finally, the construction details and the selection of materials are always rigorously controlled in order to be in concordance with the project’s fundamental concept.
We are sensitive to the synergies that emerge in collaborative processes, viewing teamwork as fundamental to the creation of great work. We have extensive experience collaborating with large teams of engineers, consultants and specialists in the production and coordination of architectural projects, from conceptualization through construction completion. We have completed projects of varying scales, both public and private, and our work has been widely published in international media.
We view each job as an opportunity to create a unique structure that can transform a part of the world, no matter the scale.
Moneo Brock has broad experience working on a variety project types, including:
• Museums
• Educational Buildings and Campuses
• Urban Infrastructure
• Religious Architecture
• Hospitality and Wellness Architecture and Design
• Rehabilitation of Historic Structures
• Interior Design
info@moneobrock.com
press@moneobrock.com
Belén Moneo is an architect and co-founder of Moneo Brock. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in Art History and Visual Arts and obtained a Masters in Architecture from Columbia University’s GSAPP.
Jeff Brock is an architect and co-founder of Moneo Brock. He graduated from Princeton University in 1985 with a BA in Architecture and obtained his Masters in Architecture in 1991 from Columbia University’s GSAPP.
Belén and Jeff formed MONEO BROCK in 1993 in New York, when they first collaborated professionally on a project for a loft in Tribeca. Maintaining connections with New York, the firm founded its Madrid office in 2002. Today project sites are located in the USA, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
Belén Moneo teaches at Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura of Madrid and Jeff Brock at the Pratt Institute. They have lectured extensively on their work in Europe, the USA, China, Turkey, Panama, Guatemala and Peru, and their work has been published in several international media.
Connected to the foyer of an elegant luxury hotel, the Café de la Reina or “BUR-BU-JA-JA” adds a colorful and casual note to the complex. A cafeteria during the day, the space transforms into a sophisticated cocktail bar at night, the patrons immersed in iridescent aquatic colors.
A long curved green bar runs through the space, while “seaweed” camouflages the curtain wall and the mundane view of the city beyond, dissolving it into small fragments of an organic, aquatic world. Smoothly curved walls with reflecting belts, circular benches and round tables create a sensual atmosphere where space and movement interact.
Aragonia
Zaragoza, Spain
Belén Moneo, Jeffrey Brock
Andrea Caputo, María Pierres, Sandra Formigo, Andrés Barrón, Spencer Leaf and Silvia Fernández
Andrés Barrón
The church “El Señor de la Misericordia” is located in the center of a new town-like urban development in Monterrey, Mexico, surrounded by an impressive mountain landscape. The most important factor in the siting and orientation of the church is its relationship to the largest open space of the development, a verdant plaza. Its main entry opens right onto the plaza, and with an unobstructed width of 11.5 meters (38 feet), this opening allows for the visual connection between the church’s interior space and the plaza. This entry is at once delineated and protected by a large trapezoidal canopy cantilevered off the main façade.
Above the entry canopy, the façade is a large flat wall without fenestration or ornament, an emphatic and nearly square plane, declarative of the otherness of the space behind and within: the sacred space of the church interior. Its blatant frontality toward the square is entirely intentional.
It is thought that the plaza can function as an annex to the church, with religious celebrations and rites spilling out of doors when attending crowds exceed the church’s capacity of 350 worshippers. On the other hand, when the bustle of the square comes into conflict with the solemnity of the church’s activities, large sliding screens attenuate the connection to the square and restore the peaceful atmosphere to the temple interior.
The project aims to go beyond the accommodation of religious rituals and liturgical events as currently practiced in Monterrey, to where the spaces of the temple represent the development of an architectural language with a very long history, where the architecture speaks of both continuity and renewal, finding references to a great heritage of ecclesiastical architecture while simultaneously remaining unquestioningly contemporary. The temple is seen not just as a place of meditation but as a social and educational center as well.
While the character of the church is undoubtedly contemporary, its volumetric concept was derived from traditional church plans; the design presents recognizable architectural features taken from early Christian temple prototypes such as the bell tower, the stained-glass windows, the frontal altar, the baptistery, the choir, the three chapels and the lateral courtyard. The architectural proposal is therefore thought to be both recognizable and new.
Being free-standing and in the center of the new town development, the configuration of the exterior volume presents a design that, while modern, communicates solidity and aplomb. The rotund forms are thought to be reminiscent of the first missions built by Friar Junipero throughout the American Southwest, constructed of wood and adobe.
The 43 meter- (141 foot-) -tall bell tower can be seen from a great distance, and serves as a landmark and reference for drivers on the highway to Santiago, on which Pueblo Serena is located.
The plan is that of a basilica, with a rectangular central nave some 15 meters wide, 18 meters long and 15 meters high (W:49 feet, L:59 feet, H:49 feet), its long axis running north-south and oriented towards the altar. There are multiple sources of natural light in the interior. Behind the baptistery a long glass wall runs the length of the nave giving views of an enclosed patio. The glass is protected from direct sun by a lightweight horizontal sunscreen projecting into the patio space, and the visual connection to the surrounding urban areas blocked by a massive stone screen at the patio perimeter. Within the patio, a water fountain spills a cascade of streams into a lower patio at the basement level.
Above the baptistery is a version of a rose window, a nine-square grid opening to the west with colored glass. To the southeast, three small chapels each enjoy daylight from high skylights, each one oriented towards a different cardinal direction so that the color and level of light in each chapel changes throughout the day. Finally, above the altar is a fourth high skylight, whose light washes down behind an inclined panel cut into four sections to reveal a large Latin cross, the cross glowing with the light from above.
As with all churches, the acoustics of the central nave were of paramount importance. The renowned acoustic engineers of Arau Asociados made a thorough study of the conditions inside the church and helped us develop a detailed approach to the configuration of its interior surfaces, including the application of diffusing wood battens on selected walls, notable behind the altar, at the back of the three chapels and the choir, and over the entry door.
Sustainable solutions were sought at every opportunity. After ensuring the project’s incorporation of thermal insulation of far and away greater performance characteristics than is typically used in local construction, we devised a system of natural ventilation that takes advantage of the bell tower’s great height to create a strong chimney effect drawing air through large-scale grills incorporated in the entry façade. Daylighting was also carefully studied to be sufficient without the need for electrical lighting in all spaces for use and work, while at the same time we took great pains to avoid insolation during the hotter months, to keep the thermal gains as low as possible. Finally, much of the building program is located underground, where temperatures are constantly comfortable, with daylight being provided by generous sunken patios.
The interior design is fully integrated with the architecture, and the furnishings are by Moneo Brock, from the wood benches to the altar, the choir and the multiple screens, the sliding doors at the entry, the doors to the main sanctuary and the screen that separates the baptistery from the central nave. We also designed elements of a more artistic nature, such as the stained glass windows of the “rose window” (a reinterpretation of the gothic feature, here oriented to the west for maximum effect during the evening Mass), the stained glass at the entry to the ossuaries, and the two sanctuaries, sunbursts made of gold or silver triangles canted to catch light from all angles.
Various artworks were commissioned for the church under Moneo Brock’s curatorial guidance: a large sculpture of Christ on the cross carved in wood by the Galician artist Francisco Leiro, a mural in encaustic of John Paul II in the third chapel painted by Pedro Cuní of New York, and a tall painting of the Christ the Merciful by Carmen Pinart of Madrid, now hanging in the second chapel. These pieces by contemporary artists, respectful of the traditional content called for by church’s benefactors and clergy, complete the space.
Thanks to the opening up of two large sunken patios, the various spaces on the basement level are flooded with natural light. Around the north patio are the parish’s administrative offices. The patio to the west with the cascading waterfall has to one side classrooms and multifunctional spaces for the community and to the other the ossuaries and a small chapel for funeral rites, spaces that are made more private in their location behind the waterfall. One of the challenges facing us in the design of the basement was the need to connect to the commercial atrium at the lower level; to create a space of transition between atrium and church, we designed a vestibule lit by an open-air, prismatic skylight and, immediately below it, a reflecting pool.
The landscape design of Harari LA successfully integrates the architectural concept with that of the larger urban project, using Holm oaks and a spectacular control and selection of the planted material to mediate between the different built structures that compose the larger development.
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Plaza Serena (Real Estate in Huajuco Canon)
Carretera Federal 500, Monterrey México
17,222 sqft
$ 2.077.717
Belén Moneo, Jeffrey Brock
Irene Alberdi, Andrés Barrón, Fabrice Leray, Jaime Salvador, Sara Pericacho, Irene Hernádez, Juan Galloso
Fabrice leray, Andrés Barrón
RGT Engineering (Gerardo Hernández)
Arau Acustic (Higiniarau)
Plaza Serena
Columbia University, one of the world most prestigious institutions for arts and sciences, greatly expands its capabilities with this building for interdisciplinary scientific research. The building is located on the Northwest corner of the University’s historic Morningside Heights Campus designed by McKim, Mead and White in 1897. In addition to the design of urban infrastructure and planning, the project adds approximately 4.500 m2 of laboratory space and 2.000 m2 of classroom, office and study space. It also includes a 1.300 m2 research library, a 170-seat auditorium, a public café and a new entrance to the Campus and the University’s Basketball and Volleyball Gymnasium. All the interior design of these new educational spaces was done by Moneo Brock.
Constructed above the existing Francis S. Levien Gymnasium, the site conditions posed a significant structural challenge requiring that the new building span over the 125 foot wide facility, while maintaining large open floors for laboratories, whose structural slabs needed to be stiff enough for the use of microscopes and other vibration-sensitive equipment.
This structural feat became the defining gesture of this architectural project. By representing the structural frame on the building façade through the application of aluminum fins oriented in parallel to the frame elements, the design reveals the varied geometry of bracing elements in the resultant patchwork of light and shadow. Even as it appears to incorporate a free arrangement of diagonal truss elements, the structural frame is in fact precisely responsive to a series of eccentric loading factors integral to the design of the building volume and to the internal distribution of programmatic elements within it. The building's campus facade is almost entirely glass, revealing the interior workings of the building and emphasizing openness and a connection to the campus community.
Besides providing critical program spaces for the University, the building also forms a new gateway to the Morningside Campus, incorporating in its northern end a fluid sequence of brightly and naturally-lit spaces along a path between the street corner and the Campus level some 10 meters higher. All this is fit alongside elevator cores and service shafts within a constrained footprint in the building area not already occupied by the gymnasium.
On this project Moneo Brock Studio collaborated with Rafael Moneo Arquitecto
Columbia University , Lee C. Bollinger, President
Columbia, New York, USA
188,000 sqft
Rafael Moneo, Belén Moneo, Jeffrey Brock
Benjamin Llana, Spencer Leaf, Andrés Barrón
David Brody Bond, Aedas, William Parson
Moneo Brock
Juan de Dios and Jesús Rey, Moneo Brock, Rafael Moneo Arquitecto
Moneo Brock
Turner Construction Company, Charles Whitney
Ove Arup & Partners Consulting, Daniel Brodkin
Ove Arup & Partners Consulting, Joshua Yacknowitz
Wolf and Company
Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin
Fisher Marantz Stone
Turner Construction Company
Soulbox is a unique piece with a chameleonic format, both in appearance and functionality. It is an altar, a vitrine, a display case, a source of light, an object with its own personality, its appearance transforming with the light that is reflected on its surface.
Soulbox is the treasure chest where we save relics, objects for a collection or with a specific emotional value; a place to display intimate pieces. It can also be the vitrine where objects of daily use can be organized: the wine glasses and bottles in the dining room, a selection of books in the office, or cosmetic products in a bathroom.
Soulbox does not need a material content to justify its raison d'etre. It can be empty and still fill the room with the color of its materials, the reflections and the light it shines.
Soulbox has a simple and functional design. The visual effect of the acrylic glass plates of different colors is highlighted by the installation of LED strips in its back, and by the use of iridescent vinyl.
Belén Moneo
Fiberglass, LED,, dichroic film