EDAA: Casa Meztitla

Casa Meztitla is an intervention of a natural scenario.

It showcases the luxurious value of leisure, the tropical weather, the intense sunlight, the smells of nature, the over 500 year-old landscaped terraces and the ever-present rock mountain: El Tepozteco.

The house, built out of rough stone, crawls low under the trees, aligned with the vegetated-covered stone slopes. It has an introverted living yet is continually open to its surroundings. Only two elements reveal its existence to the outside world: the colorful bougainvillea flowers showing randomly through the trees’ dense foliage, which mark the plot’s perimeter; and the massive and monolithic white box that emerges through the treetops.

The house layout is divided in four areas: a social area with the living and dining, an open kitchen, and porch viewing the grass patio (the only artificially induced nature in the project) which is the center of the house, and the floor slab for covering the potable water reservoir with a capacity of 280 m3 (61,591 gallons); a service area sheltering a grill, a toilet and a shower room, laundry and storage area; the room’s area (two main rooms and two guest rooms) all of them are accessed through outdoor patios, the two main rooms, on the far sides, have a private patio each. The studio, which would be the fourth area – in a second floor-is accessed through the house terrace-roof, and is open on both sides to a pair of outdoor patios. The house’s theme is not about the program but the never ending relationship between indoors and outdoors: there is no way one can go from an area to another without walking through outdoor spaces; every area (except for services) is open to the exterior in a way that one can actually be out of the house by crossing any doors. The house works likes a series of rooms connected through diverse types of outdoor areas. At the end, the mild subtropical weather was used as an excuse for not building a house that closes to itself, but that continuously opens to the natural environment and hopefully, it will bond the house, its living and nature in a symbiotic relation.

Casa Meztitla, Meztitla, El Tepozteco, Mexico
Program: holiday house
Architects: EDAA (Estrategias para el Desarrollo de Arquitectura)
Architect (partner) in charge: Luis Arturo García
Design team: Juan Hernández, Jahir Villanueva, Antonio Rivas, Ana Fernanda Rodríguez, Diego Ruiz Velazco
Construction team: Hans Álvarez, Yolibel Allende
Area: 400 sqm
Completion: 2014