HW Studio Arquitectos Complete Crusader home with outdoor walkways and courtyards tucked away among quarries locally to forbid walls in it San Miguel de AllendeMexico.
Its headquarters are nearby in Morelia, HW Studio Arquitectos He finished the 250-square-meter (2,690-square-foot) home, called Casa Enso II, in 2022, drawing on the local designs, cultural expression, and local history of the Guanajuato region.
Fifty-centimetre-thick sand-coloured stone walls are the defining feature and organizational strategy.
The walls, which are arranged in the shape of a cross, form four quadrants, framing the protective stone spaces and alleys for circulation.
“The dispersion of these spaces leads to a permanent pilgrimage between spaces,” said lead architect Rogelio Vallejo Burris.
“It puts you in touch with the earth, the air and the mountain as if it were an ancient monastery, framing the landscape but at the same time being a natural part of it.”
The southwestern quarter serves as an entrance with a welcoming settlement garden, while the northwest quarter is for parking, using existing trees to shade cars from the sun.
The center of the plan is slightly sunken into the ground, and the alleys and slopes of the surrounding land can be accessed via stone stairs.
The northeast quadrant contains a one-bedroom house. The rectangular volume is organized in a bar plan, separating the public and private spaces with an interior volume containing a bathroom, dressing room and service space.
Stone walls are broken by nearly invisible floor-to-ceiling glass that allows the heavy, single-pane ceiling and polished floors to continue outside the house’s envelope and directs the rooms towards the barren exterior landscape.
The last quarter contains a separate two-storey office space. The square shape is the only vertical element on the site and refers to the Santa Brígida mine in Mineral de Pozos. The block is pierced by a linear open-air window.
“We fancied the idea of seeing the silhouettes from the outside as if we were performing them in a play,” said Burris. The most prominent window faces south and overlooks the tall Santa Maria mountain, an essential focal point in the city.
Boris explained that particular attention was paid to the allocation and installation of the stone, which was quarried just 20 minutes from the rural site.
Limited resources required the team to be meticulous, organized, and efficient in meeting financial and architectural expectations, as well as creating a circular economy for the area.
In addition to the thermal mass of the stone walls, photovoltaic panels reduce the home’s energy consumption.
“Everything has a reference to the past,” said Boris. “This house is based on decisions of neoclassical architecture mixed with vernacular Mexican traditions, automatically associating us with Luis Barragán in that sense.”
Relatively speaking, HW Studio has also completed a An angled house in Morelia steps down from a slope Spaces are defined by light and dark walls.
Photography by Cesar Bigger.
Project credits:
Principal engineer: Rogelio Vallejo Boris
Architects: Oscar Didier Asensio Castro and Nick Zaret Cervantes Ordaz
Clients: Jim Turgo and Adriana Alegria
furniture: Namoh, Luis Fernando Luna
film: Montes Roma and Sabie