SO-IL has released details of their Las Americas social housing project in León, one of Mexico’s fastest-growing cities. Seeking to establish a solution to the nation’s housing crisis, SO-IL collaborated with the Instituto Municipal de Vivienda de León (IMUVI) in the development of the prototype development.
The scheme proposes high density, sustainable, social housing that supports social mobility with opportunities in a thriving urban center. Las Americas is a 5,800 square meter, 6-floor development with 56 apartments, ranging from one to three bedrooms per unit. The project organizes the 56 families around two landscaped courtyards within a multi-story housing block at the city’s center. A collection of shared patios along a public staircase creates opportunities for community-building and offers the residents the ability to socialize and enjoy the outdoor space. The building also substitutes fences with trees, connecting it to the surrounding park setting.
Units arranged along an exterior corridor face the courtyard space and provide views out toward the neighborhood. Inside, the homes offer natural cross ventilation, eliminating the need for mechanical cooling. Addressing the traditional home’s sense of privacy, no two units face each other, enhancing the feeling of privacy and ownership. The home layouts support multigenerational living, making room for grandparents who can watch the children as parents go to work.
SO–IL and IMUVI worked directly with fabricators in Mexico to develop a concrete brick that could be easily installed in multiple positions to produce a different unit layout and facade pattern for every apartment. The concrete unit reduces the construction time and cost and elevates the design potential of each individual home. The result is an irregular, playful facade reflecting the individual units in a unique, non-repeating pattern.
Project Name: Las Americas
Location: León, Gto. México
Typology: Intra-urban vertical housing
Area: 5,800 m2 (62,431 ft2)
Year: Starts 2019
Design: SO-IL (Brooklyn, NY) Florian Idenburg, Ilias Papageorgiou, Jing Liu, Seunghyun Kang, Ted Baab, Isabel Sarasa, Sophie Nichols
Executive Project: IMUVI León: Amador Rodríguez, Luis Bernardo Quesada, Rubén Vázquez, Emilia Ávila, Juan Carlos Cárdenas, Edgar Hernández, Judith Perez, Rodrigo Díaz
Structural Engineering: ICNUM SA de CV
Facilities Engineering: Consultoría en Ingeniería Electromecánica SC
