According to Miller Hull Partnership of Seattle, Washington, the design architects for the new U.S. consulate in Guadalajara, the multi-building campus includes a 12,000-square-meter office building, entry pavilions, support and utility buildings, recreational areas and two 150-vehicle underground parking garages.
Says Miller Hull: “Given the large number of daily consular visitors (an average of 1,800 per day, expected to reach 2,400 per day in the coming decade), the layout of the consular department became one of the key drivers to the design of the building and site. The design team worked closely with the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs to define a new paradigm for consular service: a second-floor consular department. Cantilevered out from the floors above and below, the glass-clad volume of the consular department provides a clear wayfinding element for visitors coming to the building for the first time. Accessed by escalators and elevators, the department occupies the building’s entire second level and provides visitors with views out to the tree canopy and the city beyond. The design provides the department with three times the number of service windows than the present consulate, improving service time dramatically.”
The third floor of the building contains a social center, including dining, service and gathering spaces and a large outdoor terrace for the use of staff. Solar photovoltaics will provide 15 percent of the new office building’s energy consumption, and an in-house plant will treat all of the facility’s wastewater and, as a by-product, provide 100 percent of the compound’s irrigation water demand. In addition, notes Miller Hull, rainwater will be captured in several underground tanks and then recirculated through the compound’s four water features, such that no potable water will be required to serve them throughout the year.