Casa Mixta
Projects located far from the city entail an effort of communication and execution divided into transport, resource economy and available constructive means. All through time. Because in reality, time is what makes the projects, and after all, gives form and consciousness to them and to the materials.
The resulting volume for this house is thus a mixture of materials, constructive systems, times and people.
It’s this where the house takes its name from.
Projects located far from the city entail an effort of communication and execution divided into transport, resource economy and available constructive means. All through time. Because in reality, time is what makes the projects, and after all, gives form and consciousness to them and to the materials.
This project took a long time to complete. In part due to its location, immersed in a rural zone of northern México. In part also due of its very short budget.
The house is posed as a small block containing a social area and three small bedrooms, separated by a central service block, creating lateral independent access hallways to the bedrooms. These hallways gradually allow to observe towards the environment while walking from the public space to the private compound, and are lighted by tubular skylights made of industrial tubular residue. As a complement, the social area can be completely open towards the landscape.
In a first stage, construction of the house began with reinforced concrete walls, due to the very close dialogue that the material achieved with the nearby mountains. However, because of budget related issues, the house was finished years later with cinder blocks, which are darker. This way, one side of the house relates to the more clear nearby mountains, while the other, with the faraway darker mountains.
The construction presents a brutal appearance in its elements, made by local workforce, very rural, like the one used in the rural houses of the region. Without any other pretension than to guarantee the stability of the structural elements in an orderly manner order and modulation serve as the main tools to achieve the architecture of the project.
The resulting materiality is thus a collaboration between different sets of workers, who summed up the manufacture of each part: platform, concrete walls, cinder block walls and covering. All these constructive parts made at different times.
Also from different projects: the iron used to make doors, windows and the staircase to go to the roof are metallic elements that were reused from other utilitarian structures.
The resulting volume is thus a mixture of materials, constructive systems, times and people.
It’s this where the house takes its name from.
