2 Comments »

Casa N by Agraz Arquitectos

• Tweet

• Tweet

This house was designed for a couple with two children who recently moved from Guadalajara to Zapopan, Mexico. They asked the architect, Mexican studio Agraz Arquitectos to combine something of the feeling of the architecture of their homeland along with a sense of the modern spirit of the city they were moving to.

The project is organized on three levels around a central staircase. The basement houses the garage, a services room and a game room, and the middle level houses the dining room and kitchen, and living room and outdoor family room, all arrayed around a tiny central courtyard. Upstairs are three bedrooms and bathrooms.

This involved an architectural nod to the traditional central courtyard (a small version of which can be seen through the kitchen), but much more attention was paid to the modern new Mexican architectural language of bold simple shapes.

The three floors are tied together by a pared-down, almost Platonic, very elemental stair on the central wall of the house that creates a spatial connection between the different levels.

While failing to make much of a reference to traditional architecture, the clients certainly got the modern new Mexican architectural feeling they asked for.

The bathrooms, especially are nicely composed and succinct examples of the bold new architectural language of space typical of new Mexican design.