Bacatete House designed by Rima Arquitectura in Mexico City

The concrete exterior facade of Rima Arquitectura’s Bacatete House in Mexico City

(Image credit: press)

last updated 25 October 2022

Immersed in nature, the Bacatete House in Mexico City has been designed by Rima Arquitectura as an escape from urbanity into the wilderness. The single family home features cantilevering volumes, a first floor central courtyard and a subterranean garden bringing daylight into the basement level – all of which connect the interior with the outdoors.

A single pathway glides through the rectangular plot from the street, transporting inhabitants into a private paradise. The smooth, grey stone path runs over a subterranean garden at basement level bringing the illusion that you are really floating through a forest.

Kitchen and dining room — *The ground floor living space*

The building was designed to connect nature to the lived experience – textural finishes on the exterior of the building including wood, stone and concrete, let the building sink into its environment. The inner structural system of the house is built with steel columns and girders set at an angle, while Vierendeel truss frames support two cantilevered volumes that suspend the inhabitant into nature.

Bacatete House in Mexico City — *The exterior pathway leading through the site*

The sensory experience continues throughout the house across four levels and down into the basement that opens up to the lower garden, bringing daylight into the underground rooms that include a wine cellar, gym and utility spaces.

The ground floor is a social zone for living, dining, studying and cooking, surrounded by glazing and access to the outdoors. While above, on the first floor, three bedrooms are planned around a double-height terrace at the heart of the house. An extensive master suite on the second floor includes a lounge area, dressing room and terrace overlooking the view of the valley.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Rima Arquitectura website

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Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.