-
Architects: TARA | Taller de Arquitectura
- Area: 180 m²
- Year: 2020
-
Manufacturers: AutoDesk, Daltile, Interceramic, Trimble Navigation
-
Lead Architect: Gerardo Villalobos
Text description provided by the architects. The project is a house located in Mexico City, in one of the first areas developed after the expansion of the city in 1950. The project was built on one of the few free lots that remain in the area, so the approach was to develop the project from scratch. The location of the lot is unique since it has a triple front, two to the street and one to a pedestrian walkway. This allowed generating facades to the outside although being a lot between party walls. Due to the pedestrian walkway, an area of three meters was left free, allowing the pedestrian walkway not to be cloistered.
Since the lot is of 160m2, seeking balance in the constructed volume by generating the largest amount of free area possible was prioritized. A rectangular prism aligned to a wall was chosen because of this, which allowed us to explore views, openings, cracks, extractions and additions. The exploration of the architecture, the routes and the spaces started from this geometric volume. The project was conceived as a single volume that will house all the spaces, but this volume, forceful in its form and its materiality on the outside, is free on the inside, welcoming, transparent and honest. For this, bare finishes were used where the materials expressed their beauty and harmony from their construction process, without treatments and without coatings.
The annealed clay wall was selected as the envelope in most of the walls with the reinforcement structure embedded in it, the bare concrete as an element of continuity that binds together the upper slab and stairs, the wooden ceiling that provides warmth, and the steel profiles in exposed reinforcements of the building and window frame as a link between the other materials.
