Casa Houlpoch is an old Yucatecan house from the end of the last century that gets its name from a snake from the region that regularly “visited” the property’s ruins.
Behind its colonial facade, this house accommodates four bedrooms and a studio apartment, with a total of 315 square meters of construction.
Upon entering the hall, we are welcomed by an old cast iron lamp (very common to observe in the nineteenth-century houses of the city) that hangs from the original metal beams that together with the white wooden beams embellish the high ceilings of the residence.
Throughout 12 years of professional practice we have dedicated ourselves mainly to the development of single-family homes within private subdivisions in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara. These gated communities have proliferated due to the constant growth of crime in Mexico. Which causes people to decide to live protected by walls that give them a sense of security.
We are aware that these neighborhoods mean a denial of the city since they are closed to it but at the same time we understand that Architecture must be a reflection of its time (as Mies said 100 years ago) and today in Mexico they are inevitable.
Envisioned for a growing family, the house proposes a form of dwelling organized around a continuous dialogue with the landscape in which it is located. The dark exterior grants it a solid stature, while simultaneously evoking the possibility of a home carved in the interior of a rock formation. Certain formal gestures complement this suggestion, like the sectioning of the house’s volumes that hints at the form of a crack, or the windows that appear sporadically, yet with a balanced rhythm, in different parts of the wall. Furthermore, the tour inside proposes a game of changing lights and shadows, with paths that open and close, tighten and widen, and flow into open spaces that secure both fresh air and privacy.
The inspiration at all times for this project was ice cream, all the elements seemed very important to us, their texture, consistency, history and tradition. Working with Dolphy, a brand with well-defined design parameters, we found in their guidelines the way to generate the concept based on their color palette.
Apán, is a project part of a master plan called “Laboratory of Research and Practical Experimentation of Housing INFONAVIT” includes 32 experimental prototipes of rural housing of the Research Center for Sustainable Development.
The objective of the project was to build a house in a rural context that met the characteristics of a decent home and satisfied the needs of users. In the same way, the project departs from the analysis of the site at the town of Zaragoza, Coahuila with a specific purpose of achieving a complete adaptability of the housing prototype to the site. Its location and proximity to the city of Piedras Negras generates a particular social context due to its connection with the United States. The inhabitants of this locality present a strong aspiration to the American way of life that was reflected in the buildings of the localities. On the other hand, Zaragoza has an extreme climate, but with a presence of humidity due to the San Antonio River, which is a slope of the Rio Grande. Due to this, the acequias can be appreciated in the different localities of the municipality.
This building depicts for both the design team and the developer, a different way to approach architecture with the purpose of translating habitability dynamics and new codes in a city like Xalapa. A fusion of synergies among architecture, construction and the market with a clear goal: offer a series of spaces distinguished by its spatial quality for those seeking for a property with all the possibilities offered by a low density building in a city that still allows short trips and an exceptional weather.
It is formed by 21 apartments distributed in five levels, the programme also has amenities such as the roof top with playground, pool table, bar, lounge and toilets. The two access are located on the ground floor, the main for pedestrians and the one for cars. The garage has 21 spaces and was designed to allow the future installation of carlifts to double its capacity.
The project is located in a private urbanization in the northern area of the municipality of Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico, this land has a quite unique topographic characteristic since it was located within an interior glen, which was characterized by having a downward slope almost constant throughout it, this generated as a result a difference of almost 10 m between street level 00 and the lowest point of the land, it is due to this situation that the decision is made to generate a proposal based on the fragmentation of a main block in 4 of different blocks in a descending way, in such a way that these are integrated into the natural unevenness of the site, prioritizing the generation of openings towards the North, which is in this case where there is a direct correlation with the area natural forest.
PERIFÉRICO 2008, is a multi-unit residential building, located to the south of Mexico City, very close to San Angel, known as “original town”, characterized by its history, monuments and religious architecture, as well as its museums, squares, streets and traditional parties.
The residences built there in XVIII century are characterized by being surrounded by gardens, nowadays those constructions are historical heritage within the city.
Two years two months and two days, the writer Henry David Thoreau lived in a cabin which he built himself in Walden Pond, Massachusetts, his childhood town. In just about a space of 3 m x 4.5 meters lakeside, he developed himself as an individual isolated from society looking for inspiration of the natural and its origins. His time at the cabin, let him valued what it’s really necessary and the respect of life itself which leads him to renovate him as a human and fight on social subjects at the end of his life. Which means, it’s funny how the toad is different when it enters than when it leaves the pond.
Our client sought to create an interior that catered to the local market and allowed the easy transit of delivery services like Uber Eats.
Our concept for this japanese food restaurant wanted to connect with traditional Japanese design elements without seeming thematic. Using clear cherry colored wood and a bi-chromatic color palette connects us with traditional tatami interiors and rice paper sliding doors. The mirrors evoke antique trains from the past and create visual amplitude with the customers.
We chose cherry colored wood by PROTEAK mixed with natural pine wood to bring warmth into the interior, it also helped us to create a modular division that generated our seating space and roof design.
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