A new façade. Liverpool Villahermosa, Iñaki Echeverría.

Mexican architect and landscape urbanist Iñaki Echeverría’s firm created a dynamic, modern façade for the luxury retail shop, Liverpool, in Mexico. This façade has turned a local department store into a new architectural icon.



The real challenge of the project was finding a simple and efficient system of building the façade for the department store quickly while, at the same time, presenting a valid stimulating design, like a sort of visiting card.



Due to Tabasco’s hot and humid climate Iñaki Echeverría went through various planning solutions before deciding on precast concrete pieces. Concrete is the most sustainable material for this environment as it adapts best to the meteorological conditions and also maintains excellentdurability and appearance over the years.





There are five types of pieces – each piece, shaped like a propeller, consists of four or five segments of different heights put together to reach an overall height varying between sixteen and twenty metres. The concrete propeller-shaped pieces rotate 180° round their own axis, in different positions, to create a moving visual effect resembling fish gills and were treated with acid to achieve an almost linear surface.



The dynamic impact of the façade is even better at night when LED lighting set up on a support grid behind the concrete pieces enhances the sculptural aspect of the work.





Iñaki Echeverría founded his firm in Mexico City in 2008 and is involved in many important projects. At the moment he is working on a 14,000 hectare ecological park, Parque Ecológico Lago de Texcoco (PELT), which is the biggest urban park in the world.

Liverpool Teams
Head of Planning: Martín Pérez Head of Construction: Jorge Ignacio Leautaud
Corporate Project Manager: Iliana Dávila
Construction Manager: César Guzmán
Project Leader: Paola Cárdenas / Mauricio Ruiz
Project Coordinator: José Luis Velasco
Construction Leader: Juan Alberto Maldonado
Construction Coordinator: Ricardo Guzmán
Architectural Design Team, http://inakiecheverria.com/
Iñaki Echeverria / Iván Parra / Josué Lee / Osvaldo Estrada / Jonathan Hajar / Javier Marroquín / Roberto Fuerte / Guillermo López / Jorge Durán / Daniela González / Leonel Alcántara / Fredy E. Lamadrid / Rafael Brioso / Israel Meneses / Fernanda Téllez / Xochitl Zúñiga / Víctor García
Precast Concrete
ARQME / FAPRESA
Interior Façade Manufacturer
OASIS Workshop / CASALA
Store interior design FRCH design worldwide
Photographers: Jaime Navarro, Luis Goroda, Ivan Parra