A House nestled in the Cloud Forest

IUA Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos unveiled Cárpatos in Mexico City. The project is located in a low-density residential area in Mexico City, where zoning rules currently permit one house to be built per each 1,000m² of land. In this case a 400m² site that has a 10-meter frontage and is 40 meters in depth. The narrow, elongated site—combined with the strict norms in force—were the first external factors determining the form of the house. The restrictions to the front and the rear, both of 5 meters, combined with the lateral setback of 3 meters, decide the exact perimeter of the construction.

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

The design strategy pointed towards creating the largest possible interior space, while seeking a sensation of openness and a continuous relationship with the exterior. As a result, a perimeter garden—designed to be like a cloud forest surrounds three sides of the steel and glass structure. At the center of the project, adjacent to the vertical circulations, another garden is inserted in a void that multiplies this interior-exterior relationship and the breadth, while also functioning as a nucleus regulating the ambient temperature. The basement voids suggest an interior and exterior circulation of the volume; the reflective façade endows it with a shifting appearance that makes it different and new over the course of the day and with new weather conditions.

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

The interior of the volume is dynamic, with double-height spaces, bridges and roofed external terraces that interweave with the structure to generate a spatial sensation that flows with the exterior and the habitation of the box. The program is grouped and distributed by floor; a basement contains the services and additional uses such as gym, games room, office and wine cellar. The first floor distributes the social areas of the house and establishes them in direct relation to the perimeter garden. The second floors comprises three bedrooms, while the roof terrace, between adjacent gardens and clay roofs, is an extension of the house’s social space, wholly given over to a children’s play area.

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

These four levels are articulated by the vertical circulations and the different voids that break up the uniformity of the box. The color of the structure is borrowed from the Pantone of Le Corbusier, and chosen to blend perfectly with the green hues of the vegetation and the landscape.

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

Photo Credit: ©Ignacio Urquiza Arquitectos + Estudio Vieyra fotografía por Rafael Gamo

The blue/green tinted windows act as mirrors on the outside, reflecting the skies, landscape and adjacent constructions. The intention is to camouflage the house with the immediate surroundings; the windows, together with the light gray stucco calms the light in the interior and gives the cold and rigid volume a feeling of unexpected warmth. Together with the existing vegetation and landscaping by Thalia Davidoff, all these elements reinforce the sensation of inhabiting a cloud forest where the clarity that marks a division between the interior, the exterior and the physical limits of the property is blurred.