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A Mysterious Beauty in Mexico

Valle de Bravo2 architecture
Here’s a house with a mysterious engineering problem that I cannot discover the answer to. If anyone has seen the actual house (it’s by by BGP arquitectura in Valle de Bravo, 150 km from Mexico City) and seen how this works, I’d be interested in hearing it.
Valle de Bravo1 architecture
This viewing slab is completely open. The local building code requires a sloping tile roof. It slopes down towards the hill behind the house.
Valle de Bravo3 architecture
So the view roof stretching the full length of the house is under a slab roof, and it is on top of the living quarters, bedrooms and so on. But stacked in the left corner is the glass curtain wall to close it off when the weather is less gorgeous than this.

Valle de Bravo4 architecture
But there’s the mystery. You see the stacked curtain wall here.It closes off the front when the weather is colder. But that roof slopes sharply back down towards the hill, (as per the building code).
Valle de Bravo7 architecture
So how can the curtain wall slide all around to enclose this space? A curtain wall can only slide around a cube. Not an angled roof. That is a real mystery to me.

Could the top of the roof have an angled pocket, that juts out on top towards the hill, to contain the excess glass towards the back? The architect provides no pictures of how this is solved.

Valle de Bravo6 architecture
It’s a beautiful enigma, with a great view.
Valle de Bravo5 architecture

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 19th, 2011 by Susan Kraemer and is filed under Architecture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment.

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4 Comments so far to “A Mysterious Beauty in Mexico”
  1. kaygee Says:
    January 19th, 2011 at 4:51 pm

    The end walls are fixed, only the front wall slides.

  2. Kevin Says:
    January 19th, 2011 at 11:31 pm

    In the 3rd picture, you can see that there is a cut in the roof, so that the curtain slides into the cut

  3. morner Says:
    January 19th, 2011 at 11:45 pm

    a very interesting posting. I am very happy to read it because it is full of inspiration.

  4. Susan Kraemer Says:
    January 21st, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    No, the side wall also slides, see it opened up in the first picture.

    But see in the 3rd picture from the bottom, how glass has been slid to make the side curtain wall. Since the ceiling is at an angle -maybe 25 degrees – or three feet taller at the front facing the view – how can a piece of glass be slid along a ceiling that is at a 25 degree angle?

    It must be sticking out on the other side, above the roof? As Kevin says, hidden in the ceiling pocket that protrudes upwards… If so, unique solution.

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