Casa Velasco
2008-2009, house, under construction

with Christian Magaldi

Project for a young lawyer in Mexico city; three story construction, contains his office and his house in the last floor.

 

 

3 floors :

- ground level (access to the house, access to the office, private parking and separate public parking, patio)

 

 

- 1st floor (offices, engine room for the swimming pool)

 

- 2nd floor (living-room, kitchen, studio, swimming pool)

 

- 3rd floor (room, dressing room, bathroom, terrace)

The oblique disturbs the plan regularity and expands the offices of the 1st floor. The demarcated conical space has a double function : circulation and workspace. This oblique becomes integrated into the order of the 1st floor, whereas in 2nd and 3rd floor it organizes the complete order.

The volume of the house adapts itself to the circumstances : contrary to the facade of the 1st level which answers to the continuity of the street, the volume of the house (2nd and 3rd level) is unbalanced to privilege the view on the park. Besides this deformation produces an effect: the floating volume of the offices and the house above. The room is hidden from the street thanks to a terrace of white walls. This mass which surmounts the house is in reality empty.

 

The front of house expresses this ambiguity between both volumes. The ground floor disappears set back from the street with its gate. It seems to a floating floor surmounted by a heavier volume.

The street is very narrow and the offices needed to be protected from the exterior. The choice is to recover the volume with small strips covered with mirror which frees itself from all the codes and the styles of the surroundings. At the level of the eye, the project reflects the city which accumulates objects and different systems.