Low tech house in Mexico City rediscovers the essentials

Casa Martha is part of a reconstruction project called ReConstruir Mexico, born following a violent earthquake that damaged several Mexico City buildings in September 2017. The one designed by the architectural firm Naso is one of 50 homes completed thanks to public aid and charitable foundations. The single-family house is located on a very steep hilly area. The Mexican architects chose to rebuild it on the same foundations as the previous construction, both to facilitate its erection and not to undermine the stability of the land. The project now houses a family of four: elderly parents with mobility problems and two adult children who need their privacy.

The residence is almost entirely on one floor and is built with earth bricks, which have been made on site and which, left exposed, tell the austere character of the house. The building is stripped of all superfluous elements, there are no finishes nor ornaments, and even the furnishings look like those of Enzo Mari's Autoprogettazione series, demonstrating the low tech and low budget character of the project. A vaulted concrete roof, the only vertical element of the house, houses a room that is separated from the rest of the house. This is conceived to give the right independence to one of the two children, or to allow short-term rentals without affecting family life.