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Viva Store by Roca + Paz
Viva Store is a conversion by Bolivian architects Roca + Paz in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
![003.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/003.jpg)
The rebuild, completed last year, involved wrapping a new curving "cover" around the L-shaped building.
![ilimination-10.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/ilimination-10.jpg)
The “cover” is animated by changing light patterns at night.
![ilimination-04.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/ilimination-04.jpg)
The following is by Roca + Paz estudio:
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Viva Store by Roca + Paz estudio
Santo Domingo City is the capital of Dominican Republic. It is a cosmopolitan, thriving city, marked by an impressive population growth, and massive constructions within its limits.
![001.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/001.jpg)
The project is located on a boulevard called “El Boulevard de la Churchill”, in a dynamic commercial area, at a corner of a main avenue, with date palms on the sidewalks, and wide routes.
![002.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/002.jpg)
Besides being the area of most consumption, it is over-stimulated by advertising signs, changing its urban landscape.
![005.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/005.jpg)
The project based on these urban conditions, generates a project with visual impact creating new human situations of interaction inside-outside the building-city.
![004.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/004.jpg)
The request was to renovate the building for a new company.
The demolition was excluded because of town-planning and legal considerations, for this reason we started working in the structure, where the main columns of the original edification were kept.
![ilimination-06.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/ilimination-06.jpg)
The interior structure of the columns permits us work with the crystal baseboard element, generating a continue front in its entire perimeter causing a direct communication between the activities and the public.
![ilimination-07.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/ilimination-07.jpg)
The movement of the crystal is according to the function performed in the inside.
![ilimination-08.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/ilimination-08.jpg)
It opens at the entrance creating a hall space and reception enclosed by the movement of walls and ceiling, taking the public in to free-flowing tour unifying all the different areas. In the exterior of the building the public parking lot is suitable for eventual big public events.
![ilimination-09.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/ilimination-09.jpg)
The flooring and the gardens are set in a way that lead people towards the entrance.
![sections.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/sections.jpg)
The generation of the tape or “cover” that surrounds the infrastructure marks a strong horizontal development, going with the plot proportion.
![section-1-1.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/section-1-1.jpg)
According to the line of sight, the major impact point is the affluence of pedestrians and vehicles, which produces a vertically expansion of the “cover”, generating a graphic space and giving more importance to the entrance at this point.
![section-2-2.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/section-2-2.jpg)
In the middle the “cover” flows and forms a curve; stretching in a determined point at the corner forming a tension till ending at level +/- 0.00.
![section-3-3.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/section-3-3.jpg)
The “cover” is used as a transmission device giving the language and information a new meaning which defines reactions, answers, and raises a dynamic and changing relation, able to show figures and animated lines based in digital patterns of light and color.
![floor-plan.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/floor-plan.jpg)
The proposal shows without losing or confusing a series of mutual relations, incorporating convenient urban data reaching to a clear and strong urban contribution.
![elevations-and-skins-details.jpg](http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/11/elevations-and-skins-details.jpg)
VIVA DOMINICANA BUILDING – SANTO DOMINGO
Project Collaborator
Yasmín Gutiérrez Arch.
Ruvi Suárez Arch.
Civil Construction
Diego Forero Arch., ARCA
Interior – exterior lighting
Luis Jacobo, Eng., SPECTRO Lighting group
Logistics
Ana Severino
Location
Santo Domingo – Republica Dominicana
Av. Winston Churchill esquina Max Henríquez Ureña
Year
2007
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