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Architects: PPAA
- Area: 2088 m²
- Year: 2016
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Photographs:Rafael Gamo
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Lead Architects: Pablo Pérez Palacios + Alfonso de la Concha Rojas, Miguel Vargas, Andrés Domínguez, Juan Huicochea, Justino Torres, Nancy Estévez
Text description provided by the architects. Monterrey 55 is a restoration and redevelopment project located in one of the most upcoming, upbeat, re–developing districts in Mexico City: La Colonia Roma. In the 19th century, Monterrey Av. used to be a tree decorated boulevard with majestic residences where the intellectual elite used to live. Unfortunately, due to the new urbanization practices of the late '70s, Monterrey Avenue’s life changed drastically putting these old houses in jeopardy. This is where this project comes in.
We have taken a three-story beautiful house built in 1925 that had been stripped out of its character by turning it into an office space, and we have infused it with a new life. A central goal of this project was to rescue one of the main features of this house, its wooden three flight staircase that envelopes the skylight at the center of the house. We recovered this area as the main entrance and residential lobby. This refurbished area leads to the new contemporary tower.
The original house occupies sixty percent of the plot; in the remaining forty percent we have built this eight-story tower using a light steel structure and a glass façade. The original house, which dimensions exceeds today’s needs, has been turned into two apartments that have respected the original layout. The new tower is attuned to the variety of lifestyles that inhabit La Colonia Roma and Mexico City as a whole. Thus, it considers the needs and requirements of a wide variety of possible residents.
It has four studios with one bedroom, four two-story-high apartments with three bedrooms each, and a single level apartment with two bedrooms. The rooftop of the original house is repurposed into the terrace space for apartments located on the third level. The result is a coherent eleven apartment complex where the magnificence of the past has evolved to satisfy the demanding lifestyles of the contemporary 21st-century cosmopolitan citizen.
