Project material
- Category
- Commercial & Institutional
- Typology
- Business park
- Year
- 2018
- Area
- 2.350 m²
- Location
- Samacá, Boyacá
Commercial and office architecture
Cuatro Esquinas sits in Samacá, Boyacá, at the road crossing that gives the project its name. It is a cold-climate town ringed by green hills, with a fabric of one- and two-storey houses in exposed brick, corner shops and tiled roofs that appear all at once when you look down on them. The corner lot measures 1.620 m² and faces both roads of the crossing.
Instead of occupying the edge, the building steps back. The volume folds into an L against the boundaries and leaves the corner free, so it works as a courtyard open to the town: vehicle access, surface parking, low planters and a playground. The shops take the street level in a continuous frontage; the offices stack above them, with terraces and planters spilling toward the crossing. At the rear a 4.50 m setback separates the building from its neighbours.
The section does the rest of the climatic work: courtyards cut out of the slabs bring light to the centre of the floor plate and let warm air out at the top, while the set-back corner opens cross ventilation from the free space. The materials are those of the region's building trade — exposed concrete frame, clay brick, timber screens — and the office programme is completed by an auditorium.
From a shopping centre to a building that makes a square.
The commission arrived in 2017 as a proposal for a shopping centre for Carbones Andinos: shops on the ground floor, offices above and, on the top level, the company's conference room and boardroom. The first sketch understood that in a small town the problem was not the shopfront but the ground: if the building hugged the corner, the crossing would close up. The process diagrams show the sequence that resolved it — outlining the lot, stacking the uses, pulling the volume back, cutting the courtyards, testing the sun — and the construction photographs, with the concrete frame still bare among the town's houses, show that decision already built: the corner remains public space.
The crossroads. Samacá, Boyacá: a 1,620 m² corner site on the crossroads that names the project, among one- and two-storey brick houses. Stepping back. Instead of filling the edge, the building gathers into an L against the boundaries and leaves the corner free as a yard open to the town. Stacking the uses. Shops in a continuous street-level frontage and offices stacked above, with terraces and planters turned toward the crossroads. Light and air. Courtyards cut into the slabs bring light to the middle of the plan and let hot air out; the setback opens cross-ventilation. Public space. The corner still belongs to the town: access, surface parking, low planters and a playground.
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The corner lot, 1.620 m² between the two roads of the crossing, with the 4.50 m rear setback marked against the neighbours: the starting point for the whole project.
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The uses stack in two L-shaped bands: retail open to the street below, offices above. The shape of the building is, literally, the sum of those two bands.
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Access and parking are resolved inside the lot, along its inner edge, so the crossing does not become a manoeuvring bay.
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The set-back: the volume slides toward the rear and leaves the corner free. The two marked end walls are the ones that announce the project from each road.
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Courtyards cut out of the slabs. Each void is a way in for light to the centre of a deep floor plate and a way out for warm air above.
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Sun and ventilation check: the solar path drops through the courtyards while air enters from the free corner and crosses the plan.
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Construction: the concrete frame and clay masonry mid-assembly, with the structural rhythm that later orders the façade.
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Construction in context: the building rising within Samacá's low-rise fabric, with the hills of the valley behind.
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