Geidos: open borders for growth and expansion 

Urbanization of the community of Quiebra Hacha. Photo: Courtesy of Geidos 

The horizon disappears in front of the 465.4 km2 of the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZED Mariel). The immensity of the possible, of the future that opens wide the doors to all kinds of possibilities, has been presented to a small group of architects and engineers who will earn the right to make history by accompanying with their ideas the execution of new and under construction works that all Cuba is waiting for. The Mariel Projects Group, attached to the Architectural Projects Enterprise (Emproy 2) and coordinated by the architect Joel Iglesias García, began to respond in real time to the demand for construction projects generated in the Zone in 2013, until the creation of Geidos, Mariel Architecture and Engineering Projects Company, in 2017. Providing services of architectural and engineering projects, urban infrastructure, consulting, homologations, and topography applied to construction and integrated for investments and works for the Zone are its main objectives.But as the team’s shared memories show, it all went beyond that. With an accepted leadership in the design, engineering and consulting activity in the ZED Mariel; recognized as a company of excellence, innovative and with a high performance; with an implemented and certified Quality Management System, and on its way to consolidate as a reference in Territorial Urban Infrastructure Projects and Architectural and Industrial Works, Geidos has contributed a lot to the transformation of the economic Zone. PROJECTING MARIELHardly there are plans of the ZED Mariel’s most important works without the signature of a specialist from this company, whose founding idea arises in 2015, when the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba decided this approach to an economic objective that, due to its geographical location, could become a fundamental point for trade between Asia, Europe, Central and South America, the Caribbean and North America. "This Group was brought to a corporate structure that started from scratch in every way, especially in terms of resources, and with a rented office in the Pelican Business Center," says the MSc Rubén Amado Sierra Márquez, who was appointed the first General Director of Geidos on October 2, 2017. As part of the first "wave" of people incorporated, there was a large group of young graduates of the Technological University of Havana "José Antonio Echeverría" (Cujae), who would become the precedent of a link between the company and the university, later strengthened by the architect Marta Rubio, belonging to Buildings, from her position as a professor in the Faculty of Architecture of Cujae.  Along the way, the lack of its own physical space became Geidos' greatest difficulty, with a division in its more than 70 employees and management structure. Finally, in October 2022, its employees had a place of their own. It was designed by the architect Iglesias García, who based his concept on the use of renewable energy from the sun, an innovative and efficient climate system, the possibility of cross ventilation and the use of rainwater.  In 2019 and 2023, the Geidos Building received awards in the Architecture and Urban Planning Competitions in Cuba. The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, when visiting the facility on January 14, 2023, along with a hug wrote in the visitors' book: "It is a pleasure to visit Geidos, to appreciate the quality of the design that favors the image, the working and creative environment of a socialist state enterprise with an important mission in a vital development scenario for the country. Now the challenge is to support the conditions created with innovative results in the work. Success in your performance!"PIONEERING PROJECTS AND INNOVATIONThe Director of Operations, Enrique I. Baluja Flores, explained that human capital is the company's “greatest strength”. The Operations Department is made up of four groups: Buildings (composed of the subgroups of Architecture, Structure, Electricity, Mechanics-Hydraulic and Low Current-Automatic), Urban Planning (with the subgroups of Architecture and Earthworks, Roads and Hydrosanitary), Topography and Business Programming and Control.  As part of this effort, the work of the architect Bertha Téllez Guerra, senior architectural specialist of the Urban Planning group, has stood out. "I have participated in all the conceptual ideas with executive projects for almost all the Zones. In addition, we have done work that was not part of our company’s schedule, but was requested, for example, by the Office of Territorial and Urban Planning (Ogotu), which has asked us to do planning that already went beyond the Zone to cover the different sectors that make up Mariel, and for which we have expanded the portfolio of services from the year 2022," she tells us.The architect Gretell Rodríguez Fernández, now a general planner and director of Urban Planning Projects, compares the great challenges she faces every day to a large snowball that chases her as she moves forward, faster and faster, with her eyes fixed on the horizon.  "The snowball is the construction site, and I am the planner, always running ahead," she says.Today she is an expert in the Fast-Track system, considered a highly competitive method that seeks to minimize total execution time by allowing construction to begin even if the design is not complete, while other details are being finalized, and to promote the development of the Building Information Modeling (BIM) methodology, which improves efficiency, minimizes construction errors and saves economic resources.The first foreign client with whom they established relations was the Belgian company BDC INTERNATIONAL with its two investments: BDC Log S.A. and BDC Tec S.A., recalls Rodríguez Fernández.   As of December 30, 2020, Geidos, a 100% Cuban socialist state company, has been granted the status of User of the Mariel Special Development Zone, which adds to its prestige with clients who recognize its high level of technical development, confirmed by more than 90 services provided and reinforced by frequent training events.The list of planned and executed works is long. First of all, under the responsibility of the Mariel Project Group, there are works such as the Fire Department, the train access control of the Mobile Scanner, and the reviews of the projects of the ZED Autocenter, the BDC, Richmeat, Devox, the Pelican Hotel, the pier, and the execution of works of the Mariel Construction and Assembly Company (ECM). The company's portfolio also includes the Territorial and Urban Planning of Sectors D, E, G, and I; the conceptual ideas and executive projects of the nine zones of Sector A, as well as the urbanization of housing in the community of Quiebra Hacha. In addition, the executive projects for the Food Processing Center (CEDA), the Roaster, the Laundry and the Packaging Plant of the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB Mariel), and the Mariel Glass Packaging Plant, among others, were also completed.The commitment of its employees, visible both in the economic indicators and in their altruism and mobilization capacity, has been recognized with the National Vanguard award for the years 2022 and 2023, a clear sign that architectural planning in Mariel is like a large-scale  project in which Geidos works with passion, professionalism and high efficiency.