Tecnológico de Monterrey Expedition Building

Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey is on track to become one of the top 100 universities in the world, and is already the highest-ranked university in Latin America. In response to this trajectory, Sasaki completed an Urban Regeneration Plan for the TEC in 2014, establishing a framework for the long-term evolution of its main Monterrey campus. The plan creates an urban university environment that will attract significant research and development investment, while transforming the campus and its surrounding neighborhood into a dynamic and integrated Innovation District. 

The first building born out of this plan is the Tecnológico de Monterrey Expedition Building. Aligned with the University’s ethos of Leading the Expedition Path, the building will foster a culture of innovation, entrepreneurship, and knowledge through key interdisciplinary research clusters tackling both local and global challenges.

From Planning to Building

The construction of Expedition kicks off phase 2 of the urban regeneration plan, establishing itself as a foundational part of the TEC ecosystem. On track to be completed in Summer 2024, the building is located in the prominent southwestern parcel along the iconic Av. Eugenio Garza Sada Rotary and acts as a highly visible gateway into the new Innovation District. 

Sited at the main entrance of the Tecnológico de Monterrey, the building is articulated to create a sense of journey, allowing visibility to its surrounding context. Both building and site are intimately connected to foster a unique experience inside and out.

Phase 1: Core and Shell Design

The first phase of the building’s construction was focused on its core and shell. Instead of anchoring the building around a central, large atrium, the design distributes a series of smaller atriums across the building’s core in a “hop-scotch” fashion. 

Materiality, color and scale play a significant role in the wayfinding of the project. The public circulation elements share the same material language, offering an intuitive wayfinding experience with moments of chance encounters to “design your own journey” and stumble upon spaces of preference. Each of the destination spaces carries a unique color identity that ties into the overall building color palette and provides a sense of place within the building. 

The building’s shell can be distinguished by its massive footprint and irregular shape. Grounding the southwest corner of the Innovation District, the massing is broken into a solid base, a transparent middle, and a top that is articulated to serve as a sun shading device. 

The solid base, cladded in a local volcanic stone and cementitious panels, houses most of the public programs and holds a series of terraces that carve the exterior journey of the building. The transparent middle acts as the transition from public to private and brings ample light in through the divide that separates the solid base from the articulated top. 

The building top is expressed as the more vertical component of the building that ties the majority of the workspaces together with the spaces of the Collaboration Habitat, the building’s social space fabric. As a counterpoint to the podium, its materials are lighter in color and texture.

Environmental Optimization 

In order to avoid a “purely glazed box” while optimizing the building envelope, the initial adjustments of the building massing in response to the plot’s solar orientation required articulation at a local level for each building façade. Carvings, projections and reoriented windows are tested as part of several iterations that balance factors like illumination, viewing and shading coefficients, heat gain, and glare. 

The combination of all of these strategies together with the building’s wall systems and glass specification contribute to right-sizing heating and cooling infrastructure for the building as a whole.

Phase 2: Interior Fit Outs & Unique Program

Sasaki developed a complex building program geared towards the campus’s main research entity, with the overarching goal to scale projects for emerging needs of the region and the country. These designated active zones offer a range of collaboration spaces and amenities while framing views to the iconic Cerro de La Silla mountain range, the Academic Campus, the future Innovation District, and the city beyond.

A series of common spaces connect each of the program levels throughout the building. Of the seven levels, the first two will be open to the public with access to a full-service restaurant and cafe, an experimental gallery space, an incubator, and a maker space. Alternatively, levels three through seven will offer private, dedicated spaces specializing in knowledge generation and value for society.

Color

Color plays a significant role in the identity of both the interior and exterior of the building. The interior palette draws inspiration from the iconic mosaic mural that encompasses the west façade of the Rectoria Building on campus, renovated by Sasaki in 2020. As you move vertically throughout Expedition, a gradient of tones grounds each floor and ties together the larger themes that host the different program elements. 

Expedition’s exterior color palette draws inspiration from a set of mosaic murals from the interior of the Rectoria Building. The design uses the faceted relief mural as a modern horizontal mosaic that unveils a new gradient of tones from east to west.

The first of two Sasaki-led buildings born out of the 2014 Tecnológico de Monterrey Urban Regeneration Plan, Expedition is on track to be completed in Summer 2024, and will be followed by the construction of the Tecnológico de Monterrey Innovation Hub.