El Campanario, Queretaro, Qro. Mexico

The ground level is a fluid space organized by the changes of level and sculpture.

Project details

• Location of Site: El Campanario, Queretaro, Qro. Mexico
• Design Team: Alfonso Jimenez, Marco Velazquez, Jorge Plascencia, Heliana Echavarria, Roberto Ramirez
• Project Type: Housing
• Client: Private
• Contractor/s: Anonimous-LED
• Site Area: 1250 m2
• Built-up Area: 715 m2
• Date of completion: In process

Words from the architect

Project located in an exclusive neighborhood of Queretaro City.

The site has an extremely narrow funneled access that leads into a 50mX35m rectangular area. It has a back view towards the 18th hole of the golf course and the far away hills.

The shape and practically flat topography of the site, invites to create a blind/rough facade towards the street and an open/clean facade towards the golf course.

The bedrooms escape to the landscape.

The client (a young couple with two children), asked for a place where they could exhibit their love for sculpture and painting.

The program is organized inside a container which is an open, fluid, continuous space; and it's interrupted only by holes and volumes that float. The first floor consists of public areas differenciated only by different floor levels or sclupture furniture. The three volumes on the second floor plan contain the bedrooms and work as scupltures inside the great container. The bedrooms separate form each other emphasizing free perception and filtering zenith light in order to illuminate the paintings.

The street facade is solid and made of stone.

The container is covered by rough travertino marble. Void sculpts in order to form the three white boxes from the bedrooms that pretend to vanish towards the landscape.

The main access marks the far away landscape, shows the continuos space and at the same time invites towards a misterious space in the basement. The bar and the cinema are organized in the basement bunker. This bunker is made of stone which emphasizes its relation with the underground and connects in the first floor with a deck that to coexists with the garden and with the golf course.

Image courtesy of Anonimous-LED.

The hybrid structure between a traditional system in the container and steel in the bedrooms allow to create the feeling of belonging and anchor, and at the same time the feeling of flight and escape.

Credits

• Text: Alfonso Jimenez Enciso, Lorena Apolo
• Photographs: Maricarmen Chavez