Natalia's House (Silver Medal at the Architectural Biennale of the 5th Mexican Region)
It can be said that Casa Natalia is a briefing of the
Agraz Arquitectos policies since it gathers the complying conditions for the
firm’s main features. In an outstandingly oriented North-South terrain, a
single longitudinal volume was designed, adding a limb to stabilize it. Then,
as done before, the program begins by taking the cars out of the architectural
scenery and placing them underground, which optimizes the surface area of the
land piece.
And from this perspective, we repeat the placing of
the basement a half level lower and lifting the house another half level, upcoming
to a garage that shares the houseplant with service dormitory, laundry and
equipment areas. From this point, a stairway goes upwards communicating all
three stories of the house, with the same finishing of the rest of the areas,
immediately leaving the garage environment.
As in other programs of the firm, the first flight of
the stairway leads to the main door, which by being separated from the car
entrance, leaves a front plaza for the house that dilutes all frontiers between
urban and architectonic spaces.
Once inside the first floor, the living and dinning
rooms offer an extension with an intimate family room and a terrace that can be
the perfect social place due to its transforming possibilities: it can be fused
or isolated from the rest of the precincts according to the needs and has an
independent entrance.
This time, the kitchen becomes the gravity center of
the project giving service to the dinning room as well as to the terrace,
whereas the guest bathroom is located in a fair distance to give a comfortable
privacy to its user. As a compliment of this houseplant, there is a guest room
that is contemplated for the probable future dwelling of the house owners.
Configured for a family made up of the parents and an
only daughter, the upper floor is in this sense different from others. There
are only two rooms with atypical dimensions as for its spatial generosity, and
a reading room, gymnasium and storage room that make up the most out of this
small length terrain according to the client’s needs.
The vertical circulations that join all stories are
contained in this added limb and where coated, in and outside, by metal and
wood shutters designed by the artist Adrian Guerrero. These control light and
privacy and allow a poetic dialogue between glass and steel.
Natalia House, a single volume with an added rib that
ends up being the main figure of the program, a piece of architecture bounded
to relate to the every day desires and traditions of this particular family.