Fluid, fresh and
community-oriented
Sawmill, Block A
LOCATION
Albuquerque, NM
SIZE
128,000 SF
SCOPE
Architecture
Concept Design
Environmental Graphics
Sawmill Neighborhood, New Mexico
An old Sawmill is at the heart of a planned neighborhood development in Albuquerque for which Blitz entered into a design competition. Leaning on the local upbringing of the key Blitz Team members, the building reveals a love for the culture and history New Mexico. The mixed-use retail/ residential block within a master-planned neighborhood development harmonizes with neighboring hotels, entertainment, and retail areas through material and sensitive massing.
Analyzing forms of New Mexico from the ancient geology of Ship Rock, the sacred peak on neighboring Navajo tribal lands, to Chaco Canyon, a major center of the ancestral pueblo culture, to Sante Fe, Blitz found a common language of an active top-profile, iconic, identifiable central mass, and an engaged ground plane. Using these principles, the Sawmill Residences build from a detailed, pedestrian-friendly base to an iconic, eroded mass that meets the sky in a unique way.
The allowable zoning massing is eroded using the principles of local geology revealing an iconic mass with a complex profile of occupiable roofs surrounded by an approachable pedestrian base.
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