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Architects: Delfino Lozano
- Area: 430 m²
- Year: 2016
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Photographs:César Béjar
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Manufacturers: Aceros Ocotlan, MOOMA Mosaicos, TEJAVAL, URREA
Text description provided by the architects. Casa G is a family rest house, with a game room and a terrace to host the owner’s social activities, located in the northwest area of Zapopan, on a 1000m2 land oriented north-south. The land presented an ascending topography and existing adjoining walls.
The length of the land allowed to trace a central axis that connected the main spaces of the house and its unevenness originated a perpendicular axis where a retaining wall was raised, generating two clearly defined areas: social on the lower part, and private on the highest part of the land.
The social area is accessed through a hall with a curved vault that registers the transition between the exterior and interior, where the image of the stonewall contrasts the modulation logic of the vaults that cover the terrace. Alongside, there is an esplanade that is visually connected by the same wall that extends to a staircase. This space is complemented by a visual focus point generated by a stone fountain with a tree, and the strategic presence of a mast, designed to eventually hold a piñata.
The interaction between the social and the private develops from the staircase that obliterates the natural unevenness of the land; the stonewall now merges with a bench where the garden and a weeping willow tree frame the facade of the house. On the west side, there is a brick-wall volume destined to be a game room, absorbing the space generated by the rooftop of the terrace as it is suspended above the garage. The structural solution based on IPR beams liberated both the terrace and the garage from columns, as well as it physically linked the social and private areas.
The private area was resolved with a side entry that goes along the unevenness of the land, culminating with brick latticework and mirror-still water, emphasizing the main entrance of the house. In the interior, a distributor conducts to three clearly defined spaces: on one side, the kitchen with a garden view and ventilation to the entrance hall; on the opposite side, a guest area formed by a toilet and a TV room, which can also be used as a guest room; on the front, through a wooden frame, a set of spaces aligned to an imaginary symmetry axis, comprising a small garden with a tree, the dining room, the living room, and a small open terrace with a hanging hammock. The chimney located in the center of the house represents the medullary core of family life.
Two things were achieved from the effective use of natural light and the generation of crossing ventilation: provide the common spaces of the house with better views of the ensemble and bring privacy and comfort to each room, where the main room keeps the visual domain of the garden and the game room, while the second room keeps certain independence behind a distributor that holds a linen closet and the bathrooms of both rooms. There is a housing serving module and a maintenance cellar located on the back of the house. The rooftop of the house was used as a viewpoint to the landscape that can be appreciated from the highest point of the ensemble. For this, the installations were hidden and the coating used on the floor is the same as in the game room terrace.
