Hasta La Ideas

Vertical yellow and grey stripes decorate the exterior of this family house in Mexico by León firm tactic-a (+ slideshow).

Located in the city of Lagos De Moreno, the two-storey residence was designed by tactic-a to make the most of natural light while also maintaining privacy for the clients and their two daughters.

An L-shaped plan frames a private garden in the south-east corner of the site. The architects have added a row of south-facing windows behind, which open the space out to a double-height living and dining room at the centre of the house.

A sawtooth roof creates additional windows facing eastward, bringing morning light into the top floor and down into the living room.

Other windows are partially concealed behind the facade, creating sets of thin apertures that are reminiscent of barcodes.

“The north facade is blind and windows on the west facade are ending with full transparency into the garden in search of the best sunlight and thermal conditions,” said the architects.

A staircase with thick wooden treads ascends from the living room to the first floor, which has the master bedroom at one end and the shared children’s bedroom at the other.

The master bedroom also leads out to a roof terrace with a pebbled surface.

A garage forms the south-west corner of the house and features wooden doors that match up to a wooden picket fence that extends around the back garden.

Photography is by Diego Torres + Gerardo Dueñas.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Huit House

The location of the house in Lagos De Moreno, firstly induces to develop a typology related to its historical condition (north and east facades are open to the outside, trying to get close to walls and colony’s buildings scale) in contrast, the facades of west and south playfully try contemporary living typologies currently undergoing an intense process of change and revision, in this case is peculiarly attractive by the degree of collaboration that occurred with the clients.

While this family is formed by four members, only two rooms were built, one for parents and another (with multiple possibilities of customisation) for their two daughters in order to encourage their negotiation and socialisation skills. In the house there’s also a large social space, a home office where the couple could work and a media room that can also be room for guests.

This program is materialised by an ‘L’ shaped block. The upper level has a light covering, divided into three double sections light oriented triangles pointing eastward. The north facade is blind and windows on the west facade are ending with full transparency into the garden in search of the best sunlight and thermal conditions (south).

A system ‘ladder-bridge-lamp’ located in the heart of the house acts as a filter between activities: work, socialising and cooking. The upper level that contains the two rooms on each extremes of the house allows a double height for the home office and the socialising space.

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by tactic-a appeared first on Dezeen.

This house near Mexico City by local office MMX Studio comprises an assortment of exposed concrete buildings arranged around small gardens and courtyards (+ slideshow).

Located west of the city in an area known as La Herradura, Cap House was designed by MMX Studio as an ensemble of one-, two- and three-storey blocks, which open out to gardens on two different levels.

“The dwelling should not be the result of fragmenting a larger envelope, on the contrary, it should be the outcome of adding multiple rooms, each one with its own scale, proportions and identity,” said architect Emmanuel Ramirez.

An entrance punctures the perimeter wall of the front courtyard, leading through to spacious living and dining areas on the ground floor, as well as a single-car garage.

The first floor contains additional living rooms, which open out to a plant-covered roof terrace, while the uppermost floor accommodates a bedroom and adjoining bathroom.

The concrete walls remain exposed inside the house as well as outside, contrasting with wooden doors and window frames.

Alongside the traditional architectural photography, photographer Yoshihiro Koitani composed one image showing the same woman in eight different positions.

“We have always been interested in exploring all the ways in which the spaces can be used,” Ramirez told Dezeen. “We gave the photographer total freedom to decide how the space can be inhabited beyond the obvious, and it is through this image that we can understand a sense of scale and flexibility.”

Other houses we’ve featured from Mexico City includes a house with a slate facade and a three-storey wall of plants, a black house with a high-walled courtyard and a house with overlapping rectilinear blocks of glass and concrete. See more architecture in Mexico City »

Here’s a project description from the architects:

CAP House

Located in a residential neighbourhood at the west of Mexico City, the house responds to a fragmented urban environment where the volumetric configuration of the buildings creates an uneven landscape of colours and volumes.

The proposal adopts the logic of its context, and applies it within the plot by subdividing the program into its diverse parts.

Each space takes shape as a response to the specific needs of the program and gets added onto a larger cluster of articulated volumes.

Thus, the formal manifestation of the idea gets away from the more traditional operation of subdividing a larger envelope and instead, works with a logic of adding units of varying characteristics to create an ensemble rather than a standalone piece.

This project explores the idea of the room as the basic unit of the house. The dwelling should not be the result of fragmenting a larger envelope, on the contrary, it should be the outcome of adding multiple rooms, each one with its own scale, proportions and identity.

The scale of each room and the openings of the volumes are determined by the needs of the interior spaces, thus they manifest through the façade as a relaxed and non-committed gesture.

Nodes of vertical movement, courtyards and gardens create a balance within the sequential progression of rooms across the site.

The geometric outcome of this operation creates an articulated pattern of interlocked volumes and voids that complement one another within the scheme.

Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Client: JAR & MCSV
Date: 2013

Status: Built
Type: Residental
Credits: Jorge Arvizu, Ignacio Del Rio, Emmanuel Ramirez, Diego Ricalde Team: Javier Moctezuma, Erendira Tranquilino

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MMX Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

A secluded courtyard is concealed behind the stark concrete facade of this house in Nuevo León, Mexico, by Monterrey studio Stación-ARquitectura (+ slideshow).

The family residence, entitled Casa 2G, is laid out on a rectangular plot. The L-shaped courtyard divides it into two halves, with living rooms on one side and bedrooms on the other.

Stación-ARquitectura were asked to make the building as basic as possible, but to also add some homely features for the residents. “The challenge was to achieve this with the least number of materials and with rational and intelligent use of them,” architect César Guerrero told Dezeen.

The architects planned a bare concrete construction with minimal detailing around doors and windows. “The materials and construction processes were generated by a direct local workforce made on site,” said Guerrero, “so the house combines industrial raw materials with local artisanal workmanship.”

Three bedrooms and a study are lined up along the eastern side of the house. Each one opens out to a small narrow private patio, plus the bedrooms all have their own ensuite bathrooms.

The opposite side of the house has an open-plan layout with kitchen at one end, dining area at the centre and living area at the far end. Glazing surrounds two sides of the space, so residents can open the room out to the courtyard.

Rectangular skylights pierce the roof in various rooms, bringing slices of light into the house during the day.

Stación-ARquitectura, also known as S-AR, founded its studio in 2003. Past projects include a showroom and design office for a Mexican office furniture company. See more architecture in Mexico.

Photography is by Ana Cecilia Garza.

Here’s some more information from S-AR:

Casa 2G – S-AR stación-ARquitectura

Casa 2G is a 360 square meter single family home designed by S-AR, an architectural firm based in Monterrey, Mexico. The house was designed as a sanctuary from the surrounding urban environment, as well as a series of memorable architectural spaces with the people that live in them at their conceptual core.

Casa 2G creates sensory experiences and moments that enrich its inhabitant’s daily lives, thanks in part to its sparse materiality and handmade features, which pay tribute to the artisan work of local craftsmen. The nature of this space contrasts with false ideas of human progress in a world dominated by appearances and trends.

By taking a morning tour of Casa 2-G, the viewers are able to experience those special everyday moments spent in the house. As the windows open, we take in the natural changes in the environment, and we witness the dialogue between the house and the natural light as it evolves throughout the day. Come nightfall, the house opens up its spaces so that the light from the fire can fill us with peace as it vibrates over the raw surfaces of its walls. In Casa 2G, ordinary routine is pleasantly interrupted, and transformed into memorable moments of harmony and spiritual consciousness.

Proposed as a basic house, the project is a simple rectangular volume with a courtyard that divides the social from the private area. Located in a residential area, the volume starts few meters behind the line of the street creating a courtyard for pedestrian and vehicular access.

A concrete wall with a door is to simplify the design of the facade of the house, making it as basic as possible. However, this lack of openings to the street, contrasts with a wide open interior space that visually connects the whole social area with the central patio, the backyard and the Sierra Madre Mountains filling the interior spaces with light and natural ventilation and establishing a strong dialogue with the landscape.

The private rooms are protected by a segmented wall that allows privacy; also every private room has a private patio to bring lighting and ventilation. The social area is a continuous sequence of kitchen, dining room, lounge and a large terrace that connects to the rear garden.

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

Doors, windows, metalwork and construction system are the most basic possible. The materials are left in a raw and natural way. Many of them have been done on site using materials and local labor with the intention of rescuing traditional constructive systems and jobs that have been displaced by a market of prefabricated materials, which generates low local employment and architecture based on repetition and mass.

Above: section A-A’ – click for larger image

Manual opening systems for windows and skylights and doors were designed especially for the project, developed by working closely with experienced local carpenters and blacksmiths. The architecture of the house invites the users to be part of their material structure. The use of the house generates a direct experience with materials, tactile sensations and a different consciousness of the elements that are part of the house in times of extreme lack of contact between people and objects and also between people and architecture. Thus 90% of the components of the house have been made by local labor and have only used the lowest number of industrial materials to preserve the essential idea of the project.

Above: section 2-2′ – click for larger image

Structurally, the whole volume made of reinforced concrete made in site (walls, slabs and inverted beams) floats on a platform that helps to provide insulation for the interior space, also the orientation of the house ensures the protection of the solar incidence using the existing trees on the site which bring shade to the roof of the house and also using higher volumes of neighboring houses.

Above: north elevation – click for larger image

The house is a reinforced concrete monolith that has been perforated to create the interior space which is then defined with a glass membrane to emphasize the continuity of the material in floors, walls and slabs and its quality to be gradually transformed by the movement of the light and the shadows that occurs both inside and outside of the house during the course of the day.

Above: west elevation – click for larger image

Project: Casa 2G
Architects: S-AR stación-ARquitectura
Location: San Pedro, Nuevo Leon, Mexico
Project Team: César Guerrero, Ana Cecilia Garza, María Sevilla, Carlos Flores.
Program: Private House.
Client: Private.
Construction Area: 360 m2.
Project Year: 2009
Construction Year: 2010 – 2011

Plans and Technical Drawings: S-AR stación-ARquitectura
Model: S-AR stación-ARquitectura

Structural Engineering: Ing. Jesús González Sáenz
Technical Supervision: S-AR stación-ARquitectura + Gonzalo Taméz
Construction: Gonzalo Taméz, Enrique López, Jesús Galván
Materials: Concrete, Steel, Glass and Wood.
Constructive System: walls and slabs of reinforced concrete.

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Stación-ARquitectura appeared first on Dezeen.