Corporativo SOMA

Mexico City, Mexico

Under Construction

Sordo Madaleno’s design for SOMA HQ, located at the corner of an urban block in Lomas de Chapultepec in Mexico City, presents a mixed-use office building that doubles as a city garden. The design builds on the rich heritage of its site, creating an architecture of proportional harmony surrounded by a perimeter of green space. Located along Paseo de la Reforma and Prado Norte, the headquarters stand at a key urban intersection—a busy crossroads calling out for a vibrant, activated public realm.

SOMA HQ Exterior in Lomas de Chapultepec in Mexico City. A mixed-use office building by Sordo Madaleno.

Antara, 2006-2024, Mexico City. Antara articulated public life within an otherwise dormant area of the city, impacting the daily movements of citizens. SOMA HQ’s permeable edge does this through the introduction of nature to the urban block.

The response to this has been to create a visually porous building, blurring the boundary between what is private and what is public. Previously siloed by its singular commercial programme and occupation by only one tenant, the new design will introduce an intermediate threshold through a ring of green space. It will also welcome diversified tenants, becoming home to a national bank and global furniture design studio, Herman Miller, alongside the headquarters for SOMA. The building will also host the creative spaces of Sordo Madaleno in Mexico City.

SOMA HQ exterior detail. A mixed-use office building in Lomas de Chapultepec in Mexico City by Sordo Madaleno.

Palmas 555, 1975, Mexico City. As with SOMA HQ, architectural identity transfers the role of the office building into a public landmark; a recognisable anchor within the public realm.

The project transforms a historically layered site, reinterpreting design principles of an earlier 1930s building into a new contemporary language. Rhythm, proportion, and structural clarity pair with a deliberate material selection championing textural lightness. A hybrid structure of cross-laminated timber and pigmented concrete blend the aesthetic of contemporary Mexico with low-carbon, modular construction.

SOMA HQ building foundation. A mixed-use office building by Sordo Madaleno in Lomas de Chapultepec in Mexico City.

SOMA HQ’s defining feature is the use of a strict modular grid that organises the building’s structural systems. This hybrid framework creates an expansive interior with no structural or visual obstructions. Materiality is kept raw: the engineering of the structure doubles as architectural identity. Its structural rationale carries through to the building’s glazed facade, allowing glimpses inwards from the street, and outwards over expansive views of the city.

The studios of Sordo Madaleno enjoy a separate entrance downwards into a carved-out atrium—a sunken garden and space for public art. Sunlight permeates through the atrium into adjacent studios, falling on rows of long, open-plan desks that echo the dramatic linearity of Sordo Madaleno’s London studio worktops. Both recall early designs by Juan Sordo, who first conceived of the design as a striking cantilevered dining table for his family home in 1951.

Juan Sordo Madaleno's dining table at Casa Lomas — a singular horizontal plane held low against the landscape — laid the groundwork for the studio desks that define the practice's working environment across generations. More info: Fundacion Sordo Madaleno

Reforma 2076, More info: Fundacion Sordo Madaleno

The entire SOMA HQ building works through integration. Spaces feel permeable, with unrestricted views inwards and outwards, and with light cascading deep into floorplates. At ground floor, the open entrance dissolves the boundary between private development and public realm, introducing a garden as a physical act of welcome—a place of shared experience where the building meets the street.