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Architects: Toru Arquitectos
- Area: 205 m²
- Year: 2022
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Photographs:Ariadna Polo
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Manufacturers: Helvex, Interceramic, Pinturas Berel, Tecnolite
Text description provided by the architects. This house is an investment project. At the request of the client, a single-family house was built for sale on a lot with a very attractive location within the city of Querétaro. It had to be functional for the general public since it had no final user at the time of its design and construction, but with finishes and details that would stand out from the rest of the properties in the area. The upper floor houses the private area that consists of three bedrooms, each with a bathroom and a dressing room in the main one. On the ground floor, they have space for three cars, a study, a half bathroom, a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a laundry room, and a terrace.
It has space for a small garden, however, it was preferred to fill it with crushed gravel and clay pots to save water and maintenance costs required by the lawn, without sacrificing the freshness obtained from the plants, for this reason, we also placed planters on the main facade. In the same way, a tabaching tree was planted in the parking lot, the crown of these trees forms a kind of "umbrella" with the idea of lowering the temperature on the main façade since it receives the sun from the west. Another way to protect the house from the heat of the region is that avoid large windows in front and look for other orientations. In addition to the use of skylights in bathrooms, dressing rooms, and circulations.
We really like the use of natural wood, for this project we experimented with okume veneer, which is a wood with little grain, which makes it very versatile when contrasting with other materials. In this house we use a very clean palette, practically floors, walls, ceilings, and covers are of the same tone and texture. Highlighting only the wood and black accessories, indoors. There are even a couple of exposed concrete walls, due to structural issues, which we decided to leave in their natural color since it does not break with the palette we had.
For the exterior, if we opt for some contrast. In front, we designed a wall with brick cladding that blends in with the parota door, visually it is the base of the house that is supported on a terracotta volume. And in the back, the perimeter walls are made of semi-glazed partitions, with a layer of paint in the same color as the rest of the walls, only by changing the texture could we create a much more interesting space.