A university tower in Durango, Mexico, with a Gothic-inspired glass facade

Local studio Jonathan Corral Arquitectos has finished the UAD Alamedas Tower for the Universidad Durango Santander, a private university with campuses across several Mexican states. The site looks over Las Alamedas, the long, tree-lined promenade running through the middle of Durango, and the whole design is shaped by that view.

Triangular in plan, with eight storeys and a basement, the building reads from the street as several structures at once: grey fibre-cement panels on one side, a black metal screen on another, and in the centre a glazed lift and a faceted curtain wall of triangular panes and dark mullions. The architects say it translates the composition of a Gothic stained-glass window to city scale. The back, by contrast, is mostly closed, with short horizontal windows.

A broad stone staircase doubles as a plaza at the entrance, and the building sits raised against flooding. Inside, a full-height atrium ringed by walkways keeps the promenade in view, there is a sunken black-marble plaza with a suspended stair, and the top-floor auditoriums sit under a pine-lattice ceiling among exposed ducts. A rooftop terrace looks out over the city.

It is a working campus for law, medicine, architecture and more, so the facade from Las Alamedas is the part most passers-by will enjoy.

Our summary of a story from Dezeen, published 22 October 2026. Read the original

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