TALLER VEINTICUATRO SELECTED PROJECTS
Our architectural practice can be defined as a naive curiosity concerning space. Architecture is a product of our imagination and a construct of our inner self; it reflects our dreams, memories, desires and reverence. Exploring new ideas drive our designs into a manifestation of architecture as a form of research and knowledge production. Our interest lays in the relations and exchanges between things, senses and thoughts; creating with a curious mind is a practice that frees our intuitive nature. We enjoy pushing our ideas forward and manipulating them by layering, juxtaposing, blending, separating and unifying them into architectural meaning. With our explorations, we provoke our own curiosity and ask questions about the significant factors encompassing architecture: tectonics, landscape, speculation, functionality and historical meaning. This outlines our field into a set of thoughts that grow along with our aptitudes as designers and sincerely believe in the awareness of architecture as an art that helps frame our perception of the human environment. Our ambition, despite the scale and relevance of our comissions, is to continue working hard to one day create great architecture. As a part of a generation of architects born in an era of economical crisis and without isms to follow, our range is wide open at the time it has to be focused in our trade.
LUIS ADELANTADO BASEMENT GALLERY Polanco, Mexico City, Mexico.
We are interested in the reciprocal interaction between art, architecture and nature, there is a certain seduction in conceptual construction of spaces beyond their physical reality and how unexpected relationships can arise, taking as a reference an artificial frame: the basement of the Luis Adelantado gallery. We’ve imagined an infinite gardened residence, the intellectual landmark of the impossible house, a montage where the visitors are the protagonists and the deteriorating plants that cohabitate. The architectural program has reduced to the artifacts that define an activity, in this modality we find the stove, a sofa, lavatory, drafting table, bookshelf, dining table, a bed and coat stand distributed in an alternate way on the checkerboard defined by the structural grid. We aren’t working with an idealized nature, we’ve convinced the landscaping studio of designing green spaces that will eventually expire, show the secret process of deterioration, work with the decomposition and expose the vegetable species as a live organism, that repeats itself infinitely in perimeter mirrors. 4 photographic cameras will document the vegetal deterioration, visitors movements and the transformation of space every minute during the installation period. With this information and the waste from the installation 3 artistic pieces will be produced: 1. Printed Photography. 2. Fast motion video. 3. Pile of organic residue and the furnishings utilized. We’ll see to it that the furnishings used in the exhibition be donated to such purposes, and that the vegetation be extracted from a nearby park in bad condition, in the event that these goals are accomplished the assigned budget for the installation will be used to rescue one public space in Mexico city (park, roundabout, median, etc). Undernatural. A word with a meaning free of interpretation.
Basement gallery.
Infinite space. Axonometric
Mies Van der Rohe over Velasco.
Plan View Luis Adelantado Basement Gallery. Studio Model.
Bedroom Studio Model
Tree garden. Studio Model
Renderung. String Gardens.
Distribution plan. Natural and artificial species.
Side view. Studio Model.
HOUSE AT ANTON LIZARDO Anton Lizardo, Veracruz, Mexico.
Anton Lizardo is a location and port of the Metropolitan zone of Veracruz, mainly recognized for being the headquarters for the Heroica Military Naval Academy. The house in Anton Lizardo aims at formal objectives, to reinterpret the endemic activities of a fishing town and to retaining the self-construction systems and improve the aesthetic tradition of the beach house. The program is distributed between three floors; the first is wrapped in its totality with brick and concrete floors, while the two upper floors are of wood construction. Located in the ground floor are the social areas- kitchen, dining, living, garage, garden, and pool. The latter is the axis that communicates in an indirect manner with the whole house, forming a pond within the grounds, is an excavation that could be out of natural stone, rugged and rough. The formal solution located three walls that generate spaces above. The views are direct, towards the pool while at the same time being private. The upper level -top floor and terrace- is wrapped and composed of wooden planks that have been scorched with fire to avoid the inclement weather, partly it recalls the boats of the fishermen and the passage of time. In the first level, rooms are with hinged shutters that fully open to allow terraces to naturally ventilate and cool the interiors. Natural lighting can be subtle or direct if desired. Again, the second level is a terrace on the roof - social area - which unlike the ground floor, interacts with the landscape of the village. It is framed and delimited by a wooden roof supported by steel profiles; the cover is the formal house axis, linking all the spaces either in its function or its visual relationship. Reading on a bed bunk on the roof of my house, the background wind brings in the sea breeze and all those small objects that are always within the beach sand. I look up and the view is juxtaposed between the wood lattice and the bright blue sky. Once again, as it is tradition, there will be a reunion on this terrace. Drinking and eating, two of the activities best enjoyed when accompanied. Downstairs in the bed rooms are my children, both enjoy walking around bare-foot on the concrete floor, which appears unfinished but is smooth and fresh. They like playing between the bed’s shutters, imagining that they are broken walls that allow wind to flow through them. As for the smell of seafood that is being cooked down in the kitchen, Did I mention the terraces below are a pleasure? The living room and the dining room have a terrace that ends at the edge of the pool; there are intersecting partitions that become private areas, individual patios that communicate subtly. Below is a fortress, surrounded by walls that only allow the view of the sky- the clouds during the day and the stars during the night- while enjoying the warm wind. The entire house is silent, the houses in small towns are always silent, and the walls seam to speak with the echoes that bounce off of them the thousand times, a thousand times.
Main faรงade view.
Perspective.
Ground level.
Firts level.
Second level.
Bedroom.
Main section, points of view.
Pool view.
R O M AN T H E R M A E S Historic Centre, Rome, Italy.
The proposal’s foremost exploration comes after an essential understanding of Ancient Rome’s lifetyle, where thermal baths performed a preponderant role in the recreational activity of roman people. Imagine for a while the thick masonry walls, the temperatures, the fragances, the harmony of the forms, legionaries’ sandals wandering across the corridors, red tunics. Contemporary Rome has striven tirelessly to remain unaltered, becoming a citymuseum which doesn’t consent novelties among its buildings. To raise a 100m tall Vertical Spa next to the Coliseum already implies a kindness dilemma, the proposal suggests avoiding confrontations by resolving the facade with immense red curtains, allowing the wind to change its form and conciliate the differences with the new neighbors. With practically a perfect symmetry, the building is unraveled with a quadrangular plan that absorbs the variances of program in each level. Nowadays notion of interior space cedes to the seductive ancient idea of eliminating doors and windows, so the thermal bath visitors may rejoice in the temperature changes without modern artifices. Therefore, it seems the use of curtains is a great idea; the single possibility of placing them as preferred worth all the effort. In summer to the west, concealing from the sun; in winter all closed, sheltering from the cold. An unlimited catalog of possibilities. According to a heterogeneous vertical allocation, spaces have been arranged along the tower; the differentiation of intimate, private and public rooms is resolved within vertical levels. It is understandable that hot waters must be in the core of the building as a beating blue heart, where darkness and steam lead the dazzling scene of a roman thermae of the XXI century.
Courtains configurarions, a responsive skin.
A hundred meter courtain tower.
Course pool.
Caldarium.
Massage rooms.
Architectural plans.
Main section.
COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTS Cordoba, Veracruz, Mexico.
The property is located in a residential zone in Cรณrdoba, a city on the banks of the Sierra Madre Oriental at a midway point between Mexico City and the port of Veracruz. The steep triangular terrain is a fortunate event: defined by the intersection of two streets, with incredible views of the city, a contiguous Oak forest and a high bamboo barrier to the south. Building an architectural college must be an impeccable act, the building is a message that the guild sends to their community, and that is why there is no surprise with the exuberance of the order: universal accessibility, energy efficiency, resource economics and bioclimatic strategies. A simple building was sought that exposes structural logics, construction details, local materials from the region, steel and concrete apparent, and an exquisite woodwork. The discourse is the building itself, without greater pretension than being well built. The solution places special attention in mitigating heat with passive cooling systems (wall with thermal mass to the west, overhang on the east faรงade and cross ventilation). Service spaces located to the south serve as a thermal blanket, an endemic garden cools the ambiance, exterior circulations through a perforated mesh allows wind flow to pass, while a double-keck covers the entire space.
Main faรงade.
View from the Avenue.
First level plan.
Main section.
Model.
Furniture and carpentry.
Axonometry.
FACTORY OF ARTS AND TRADES Satelite, State of Mexico, Mexico.
The proposal plans the utilization of tower’s interior space with the purpose of intruding as less as possible on site and keeping the artwork by its appropriation. In this fashion, the program scatters, bringing about new activity on the esplanade, which has been transformed with the massive introduction of plant species that favor habitability in a zone suffocated by the uncontrolled urban growth. This strategy sets up the progressive expansion of green areas in the immediate context as a subtle way for facing the possible construction of a second floor of the Periférico avenue next to the towers, and as a supporter for the possible incorporation of new cultural buildings in the zone. The project establishes a distinct logic for the city’s development, based in the appropriation of urban voids, which goal is to consolidate the current urban fabric by two operations: 1. Open space is Reforested, to contain growth to generate habitable public space. 2. Built space is Reused, changing land use, by adding program or just voiding the structure. Regarding the original structure and configuration of the towers, the access is given trough the existing service doors, with the same intention of constructing as less as possible the parking was redesigned to support the program. The complex is reached through a net of walkways connected with the park-auditorium trough an underground passage that doesn’t alter the traffic flow. When setting aside the auditorium, it is expected to favor a change of the land uses on the block that will compliment the FARO de Satelite’s program in the future. It was decided to reuse an industrial building, empty it and let the nature define and enrich the space, due to a natural topography, which will let different arrangements and events.
Satelite Towers by Luis Barragรกn and Mathias Goeritz.
Nature vs. City
Closed gardens.
Site plan.
Program.
CASA DE LA ESPERANZA Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico.
Expansion of Prevention Center Casa de la Esperanza (Home for Hope) is a drug addicts’ rehabilitation centre in Mexicali west suburbs. The design of its expansion (developing a prevention area) demanded four buildings: chapel, retreat rooms, multiple uses hall, and a priestly house. Built thanks to volunteer contributions, it was designed regarding on minimum construction costs and a masterplan by stages. The first decision was to take advantage of existing boundary walls, fitting the new program to the plot edges. In this fashion, space allows the creation of the elliptic shaped Jardín del Silencio (Silence Garden) in the core of the complex. Bordered by a concrete wall four meters high, it links and communicates the rehabilitation centre with the proposed prevention area, this makes an introduction to the many emotions present at Casa de la Esperanza. A hovering timber canopy between the boundary wall and the (existing) dining hall defines the long plan of the Capilla de la Alianza (Alliance Chapel), daylight flooded through lateral skylights. Coming after the altar, a small garden can be delighted trough a large window. Embraced by the retreat rooms, the events hall in the center of the complex is connected to the chapel by a confessional booths area (the hall will be used also for special masses). Two rectangular courtyards enable the expansion of the multiple uses hall activities to the outside in massive events. Resolved in two floors, retreat rooms and the priestly house protect the aforementioned courtyards, define the access to the complex and shape its new front. This project was made in collaboration with the Architect Mario Carranza, the Capilla de la Alianza and the Jardín del Silencio have already been completed.
The garden of silence.
View from the garden.
Alliance chapel.
Ground level plan.
View from one of the access to the garden.
View from the chapel access.
Chapel interior.
ARCHIVO PAVILLION - DOMUS Mexico City, D.F, Mexico. Lightness and gravity.
Conference.
I imagine a levitating veil hidden into one of those lost gardens that only exist in amazing stories, it is the morning hours and water molecules condense floating around the space I occupy, they call it mist but for me it has always been a mystery. Since my early childhood I have been captive by the blue veil that protects the mountains, this physical condensation of the atmosphere seeming to evanescence matter long away in the distance. Evanescence, what a beautiful word, probably Chucho and Luis would also mourn the oblivion of such a thoughtful idea. For sure there is a word that describes our expectation for this secret garden, a concept that will inhabit the tip of the thong of those visitors whom like me, will be able to enjoy here the natural forces. Ours is a spatial intervention; more than a pavilion a Mise en Scène, the garden shows furthermore this blue veil that materializes into the air, a tectonic piece of wood that represents mass and force, in this theatrical piece the spectator is the protagonist on the secret relationship among gravity and lightness. The pavilion is divided into two pieces that builds the spatial experience within the garden:
Music performance.
Cocktail.
Contemplation.
1.Blue canvas: designed and manufactured to the outdoor, with a flexible and resistant structure to maintain complex forms with minimum tension, it fastens to existent tree trunks with textile belts without any damage. It is the installation protagonist element, working as a cover, wall or stage, always in relation with the machine. A canvas prototype was manufactured and assembled in order to prove it’s malleability and resistance, although the 3x3 mesh behaved really well, for the installation we’ll contemplate the next considerations: use a lighter and more flexible plastic material than the prototype polyethylene; increase the strips width that shapes the square unit of the shell, in a 1:1 proportion between the height and width of the arista; substitute the staple unions for thermofusion; explore a triangular structure that allows the load distribution uniformly. 2.Mobile machine. With a principal disassemble structure of steel profiles and Masisa panel racks, with integrated electric and data installation, a four people group is able to rotate the structure in order to be used as a sitting steps, stage , bar and cafeteria. It is an antagonist piece that facilitates the garden activities..Although the machine design wasn’t properly calculated, we’ve consider the manufacture of the steel profiles directly in the workshop and the possible substitution of steel for aluminum. We aim that the structure holds together with bolts and nuts, in order reduce the welds and facilitate the piece dissemble once the installation concluded, our intention is to donate the piece to the elementary school El Pipila.
Lightness and gravity. Model.
Prototype installation.
How to build a plastic net by steps.
Possible configuration of the mobile machine.
SAN FELIPE BEACH HOUSE San Felipe, Baja California, México. Block walls rise upon desert lands, whitened by lime, surfaces decked by workers inexperience. Here everything is about sun, beach and adventure. This house for an American family, located in San Felipe, Baja California, will be built with concrete block walls, loose-filled with perlite insulation. The house is perfectly modulated for a handier construction and costs saving. Limed walls, few openings, and a palm shelter in the flat roof are gestures retrieved from local vernacular architecture. Thought as an amusing home, it consists of three floors with a terrace roof. The lowest floor, buried half a level, lodges the bedroom, a private space open to an exuberant garden. Exterior stairs will let the users go upstairs to dive in the pool in the mornings, or to have a walk by the beach. The kitchen and the dining room are arranged at the desert’s level. A small deck lets people extend the afterdinner talks to the outdoors, delighted by the landscape. The close and solid main façade is interrupted by a wooden box which defines the entrance. Next, the hall shows the iron stairs which lead to the living room on the second floor, used also as a room for guests. This unique space, linked by a double-height to the dining room, receives daylight by an elongated skylight which extends and become a window. The palm shelter attached in the terrace roof becomes the gatherings place with the best views from the sea and the desert. Relationships among spaces have been carefully managed to take advantage of the house’s capability of becoming an exceptional experience in a family’s life. Its orientation and plan-spin follows the path of the sun along the day and the insatiable need of contemplating the sea from home.
Perspective from the pool.
Living room.
Isometric.
Bedroom.
Basement plan.
First level plan.
FLOODS OBSERVATORY Tenosique, Tabasco, Mexico.
Once the (post) modern conflict between form and function was overcome, the current generation found in concept, map and diagram the way of being of Contemporary Architecture, limitlessly exploiting the technological and economical capacities brought along by the peak of capitalism. While traditional borders blur, concepts change their meanings, ideas globalize and trends multiply, the citizen becomes a consumer and architecture a product. This proposal comes up after reflecting on an Antiquated and Natural Way of being a life intimately related to cycles of nature where man adapts to ease his existence and lessen his impact on nature. Thought as a timeless wonder the flood observatory must be a receptacle of nature, memory of the storms where time reveals itself implacable. Floods are natural and periodic processes that become catastrophes when cities are inappropriately located or eccentric meteorological events occur. The project expects to create environmental consciousness, not by the rejection of the event or the vain search for lessened damages, but by converting an event into a cyclical rite for endurance and acceptance. The flood observatory is considered as an instrument for measurement and education, an experience enhanced by its site: a clearing of trees close to a gully of the Usumacinta River. Two buildings make up the complex: firstly, a triangular tower 48 m tall contains the program and acts like a hydrometric scale. Over time, marks along the tower walls will register the historical maximum levels of water above the ground. The second building is an inverted conic rain gauge with 40m of diameter at its rim. This reservoir will quantify monthly precipitation, and to store enough water to supply the tower and the entire population of Tenosique in the case of a disaster. Thousand moons and suns are mirrored into the immense artificial cenote, an observatory of the universe and floods, water marks register on concrete walls, while great chiaroscuros wash over surfaces in this feast of shades. Fine raindrops raise like fog in the humidity of this pit, while old trees put up the resistance once again, so many battles they have won. Hundreds of people witness the show of the catastrophe, above, in the tower, that impressive stops its way to survey with authority its self existence. Suddenly silence, the night, dragonflies coming in and out recklessly, sparkling blazes into the clarity of mind.
Flood Record.
Main Section.
Astronomy Study Infographic.
Aereal view.
Cenote at Night.
NARANJO’S HOUSE
Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. This assignment for a young graphic designer, sought for a personal sanctuary, suitable for living and working, gathering friends and clients, which may be used in different ways but always very individual in character as in measurements. Despite owning a widespread lot, the budget defined a basic and compact program: a public room in ground level –used as studio, living, dining and kitchen– with a small service core, and a private area –including bedroom, walking closet and main bathroom– in an upper level. Located in Mexicali, the fifth hottest city in the world, first of all it should be an efficient and confortable house, our goal was to use a minimum amount of artificial systems for climate control. This bound every single constructive and interior element of the project to contribute in someway to achieve a bioclimatic building. Orientation favored the settlement of the house: solved as a parallelepiped volume oriented from east to west, it works at the same time as a barrier between outside and inside the plot. Whitewashed firebrick was chosen as main constructive material, because of its purchase ease, low cost and thermal capacity. The robust south wall rises towards the street, protected by the eave that provides shade in the harsh sunlight hours. Only the main access, and some little openings whose front hides in the depth of the partition appear in the façade. To the north, the large window of the living room refreshes the house thanks to the placement of a lengthwise pool and the garden, designed as a reticulated field of orange trees. The double canopy system with an intermediate aired camera mitigates the heath conduction by the rooftop. The garage and the services confront the unavoidable west side, protecting the rest of the dwelling from the afternoon aggressive solar rays. Finally an orange trees grid arrangement inhabits the backside of the plot creating an open territorie for party, rest, talks or yelling.
Model.
Second level plan.
Ground level plan.
Main faรงade. facade.
Longitudinal section.
Transversal section.
Isometric.
WORK TABLE AND BOOKSHELF Roma Norte, D.F, Mexico.
For our small workshop to function we didn’t really needed a new table or bookshelf, we sought to renew our work space. It seemed appropriate to use the money on furniture that we can eventually move to another office space, while at the same time giving an example to our clients of our carpentry workmanship. Designing for yourself is perhaps the greatest challenge that a creative person can assume; if rebuilding our environment is rebuilding ourselves, the design of our new work furniture had to reflect our interior nature. We find it interesting to work within a scale of tiny objects that we as architects often times find distant. We accumulated, classified, and photograph all objects that we found. We discovered that the objects simultaneously defines our likes, space and use, for example the cutting blade which occupies 2 cubic decimeters of space, in order to be used requires a cutting table with an area of one square meter. With this in mind, we decided that the bookshelf should permit multiple uses and interchanges between shelves and drawers. Instead of making one piece, we divided it into 24”x 48” modules that could be manipulated in function of a new space. The work table is similar, we decided to embed wires within a hidden channel and incorporate a secrete drawer underneath the table top, one per occupant with the intention of extending the working area when necessary or at least to hide objects of everyday use. The furniture’s structure is made with balusters and wooden planks of treated pine, inked with alcohol ink and coated with 4 layers of matte polyurethane. For the table top we wanted to try a system based on inking plywood placed on edge and varnished with 12 coats of polyurethane.
Plan view.
Bookshelf axonometry.
Table axonometry.
Model.
Model.
WORKS
WISH 2004. WORKSHOP ON INTERNATIONAL HOUSING. Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. 2004
SAN FELIPE BEACH HOUSE San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico. 2006
CASA DE LA ESPERANZA Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. 2006
MEXICALI APARTMENTS Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. 2007
BUILT
METROPOLITAN INFOGRAPHIC CENTER Plaza de las Tres Culturas, 2007. Tlatelolco, Distrito Federal, Mexico.
ARQUITECTONICA DE LOS CABOS CORPORATE BUILDING El Chamizal, Cabo San Lucas. Baja California Sur, Mexico. 2008
UABC ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. 2007 FIRST PLACE
STATE CENTER FOR THE ARTS Morelos Park, Tijuana. Baja California, Mexico. 2008
HOTEL AT LAGUNA DEL CARPINTERO 23 PANI / FIRST PHASE Laguna del Carpintero, Tampico. Tamaulipas, Mexico. 2007
METROPOLITAN AQUARIUM 23 PANI / SECOND PHASE Laguna del Carpintero, Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico. 2007
SELECTED
HONORABLE MENTION
“LA GONZALEÑA” TEQUILA FACTORY Chinaco Factory, Ciudad Gonzalez. Tamaulipas, Mexico. 2008
SAN FRANCISCO DWELLING Crissy Fields, San Francisco. California, United States. 2008
HONORABLE MENTION
GONZALEZ GALLO PARK Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. 2008
FACTORY OF ARTS AND TRADES Satelite, State of Mexico, Mexico. 2009
FIRST PLACE
SECOND PLACE
GOLF CLUB HOUSE LAGUNAS DE MIRALTA Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico. 2009
NARANJO HOUSE Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. 2009
ROME THERMAES Historic Centre, Rome, Italy. 2010
AUDITORY ICT Tamaulipas, Mexico. 2010
PIER MUSEUM FOR IMMIGRANTS Miami, Florida, United States. 2009
LAS PALMAS APARTMENTS DF, Mexico. 2009
NEW HIGHSCHOOL CAMPUS ICT Tamaulipas, Mexico. 2009
FLOODS OBSERVATORY IN TENOSIQUE Tabasco, Mexico. 2010
FIRST PLACE BUILT
HONORABLE MENTION
WORKPLACE AND GARDEN IN REFORMA Del. Cuauhtemoc, Mexico. 2010
SEAPLANE TERMINAL MIAMI Byscaine Bay , Miami. Florida, United States. 2010
BUILT
NATURAL HISTORY Canal de Panama, Panama. 2011
INDIE ROCKS! HEADQUARTERS Condesa , DF. Mexico. 2011
FINALIST
BUILT
HOUSE AT ANTON LIZARDO Anton Lizardo, Veracruz, Mexico. 2011
LUIS ADELANTADO BASEMENT GALLERY Polanco, DF, Mexico. 2011 SELECTED
PROJECT HERACLES Gibraltar Strait, Europe, 2011
WOOD HOUSING Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico. 2011
PAMPLONA SQUARE Pamplona, Norte de Santander, Colombia. 2011
KINDER RODOLFO MORALES Santa Cruz Amilpas Oaxaca, Mexico. 2012 UNDER CONSTRUCTION
TOURISTIC DEVELOPMENT Cuevitas, Nayarit, Mexico. 2012
LAPTOWN Mexico. 2012
EURORSCG MÉXICO OFFICES Colonia Anzures, DF, Mexico. 2012
PANCRACIA BAKERY Roma Norte,, DF, Mexico. 2012
FIRST PLACE BUILT
ANGST DF, Mexico. 2012
ARCHITECTS ASSOCIATION OF VERACRUZ Cordoba, Veracruz, Mexico. 2012
UNDERCONSTRUCTION
MEMORIAL TO THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE Bosque de Chapultepec, Mexico City. DF, Mexico. 2012
WORK TABLE AND BOOKSHELF Roma Norte, DF, Mexico. 2012
QUINTA CARDONES San Quintin, BC, Mexico. 2012
ARCHIVO PAVILION Mexico City, DF, Mexico. 2012
ARCTIC DATASCRAPER North Pole. 2013
HOUSING FOR 3,000 INHABITANTS DF, Mexico. 2013
SANTA FE HOUSES Los Cabos, BC, Mexico. 2013
BONATERRA Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. 2012