Warm and lively brutalism In Mexico City

The atmosphere in the Coyoacán district, feels like suspended in time, amidst colonial architecture and tree-lined boulevards, open-air cafés and art galleries. Here, studio Miguel de la Torre mta has designed a housing development that fits into the existing context, firmly marking its contemporary identity but transferring into the project those characteristics of relaxed tranquillity that the neighbourhood inspires. The complex consists of thirteen terraced residential units, arranged along a common distribution path. The dwellings, distributed over three floors, include the parking area on the ground floor, the living area and services on the intermediate floor, and the bedrooms on the upper floor. The need to protect domestic intimacy leads to a compositional solution of monolithic, introverted volumes that dematerialise only in the few selected openings and the perforated screen which, like an Arabian mashrabiyya or a Brazilian cobogò, allows natural light and ventilation to filter through and protects against visual introspection.

The structural shells in reinforced concrete, the plastic volumes that create – between projections and recesses – vibrant chiaroscuro effects, and the essentiality of the composition recall brutalist suggestions, innervated by that passion for colour which pervades Mexican architectural culture starting with Luis Barragán and reviving in the bright orange pigmentation of the concrete surfaces. If the masses of the buildings are tightly clustered on the outside, on the inside they deconstruct between fluid, luminous spaces and tree-lined patios, onto which large windows open. Simple, natural materials, such as exposed concrete in the walls and unfinished wood in the floors and furnishings, give the rooms a rough and essential yet warm and welcoming character.