To commemorate those employees who have devoted more than 25 years of service, Banco Popular of Puerto Rico commissioned a typographic mural to exhibit their names.

A mix of aluminum, stainless steel, translucent resin, seaweed, and frosted acrylic were used in the design of the composition.

Custom fixtures were designed for the particular needs of the project.

A detail of the installation system used to assemble the different pieces together.

PROJECT CREDITS _ Client Banco Popular de Puerto Rico Client Representative Arq. Jorge González Ríos Creative Direction, Graphic Design, Typography Alberto Rigau, AIGA Industrial Design Alex Martínez of Jorge Rigau FAIA ArquitectosFabrication Rótulos Villegas, Pro Glass, 3Form

The Garden of Amendment / Jardín del Desagravio
Architecture by Jorge Rigau, FAIA
Graphic Design / Typography by Alberto Rigau

This architecture project, as commissioned by the Municipality of Hormigueros, required the provision of a code-complaint ramp to connect a higher level of town with a lower one.

The problem was reinterpreted in expanded urban terms, given the ramp’s adjacency to key civic buildings (City Hall, a new School for Visual Arts, a Public Transportation Terminal) and other pedestrian connections and civic spaces. A garden was incorporated to enhance the ramp’s importance.

Named “ The Garden of Amendment”, the space honors the town’s most important 19th Century historic figure: Segundo Ruiz Belvis, who – ironically – was forced by Spanish colonial authorities to live in exile most of his life. Adamant in his liberal, pro abolitionist ideas, he never ceased to criticize the local government from afar.

The specific selection of plant material also honors those in exile. All ground floor vegetation is green, while flowers only appear atop a pergola: these are from epiphytes, plants that grow without direct contact with the ground… like people away from home manage to do.

A steel wainscot in the garden area “apologizes” to Ruiz Belvis, who had to live and flourish away from home unwillingly. Simultaneously, it acknowledges Cubans, Dominicans, Haitians, and young professionals from the Caribbean that, in recent years, have been forced to leave their homeland and settle elsewhere…

The text on the wainscot reads:

Garden of Amendment

This garden apologizes for those whose lives were forced to take root – and thrive – away from their homeland.

In amendment, the children of Hormigueros dedicate this garden to Segundo Ruiz Belvis and to many other immigrants because we don’t forget that, from afar, they have made the country ever larger:

slaves, farmers, workers, Cubans, Haitians, Dominicans and young professionals alike .

Hon Peter J. Garcia, Mayor
Municipality of Hormigueros

During September of 2009, Puerto Rico’s professional college of architects and landscape architects awarded the annual medals in architecture. These awards, named after Ricardo Alegría, are given to individuals and/or entities who are not directly related to the discipline of architecture but who have contributed to the field in a way that can be evidenced in a substantial body of work.

Previously, this prestigious recognition had been given four times, and to my knowledge, recipients were given only a certificate. This year, Estudio Interlínea gifted the college with a design of commemorative piece to be handed out in the naming ceremony.

The initial challenge was to suggest the quality of the object. Even though the award uses the term “medal“, I inclined for a piece that could be exhibited by the recipient in a more efficient manner, thus the creation of a table-top piece.

Conceptually, the composition represents the larger social context (outer square) inside which architecture unfolds (smaller square). The recipient reaches out from this larger context and crosses the architectural field (diagonally placed piece of glass), leaving his mark (smaller aluminum triangle on the lower right side of the inner square). He or she eventually keeps moving into other aspects. (the extension of the piece of glass beyond the smaller square).

*For those of you with a nerdy inclination towards typography, the initials of the award’s name are abstractly embedded in the design, with a lower case r on the left side of the diagonal piece of glass and an upper case A it’s right side.