How to build a Mexican home on an in-between space, where the urban sprawl of San Luis Potosí meets the arid landscape of the Altiplano? To create Casa Eco, a private residence making the most of its unique setting, local firm Sensacional Dinámica Mexicana (SDM) decided to bring down an existing wall on site that once separated the city and the plateau.
Step inside this desert Mexican home
Set between the edge of the Sierra de San Miguelito and a residential area, the plot was dotted with large existing rock formations. Rather than the old wall, it is this stunning geology that now forms a natural boundary for the new structure, with which the architects aimed to celebrate the terrain and natural environment rather than erase or ‘colonise’ it.
The replacement of the traditional signs of human-made enclosure with ‘a natural threshold founded on respect, ecological integrity and coexistence’ challenged the local construction regulations, and adjacent common land, say the architects, led by SDM founder Sergio Padilla. ‘The rocks now operate as the project’s perceptual structure: they delimit, orient, contain, and establish a direct relationship between the house and the mineral memory of the site.’
One rock also supports one of the new house’s concrete walls, which rises to form a frame for the surrounding landscape. It is part of a series of exposed concrete volumes that echo the site’s geology: ‘The volumes are organised, stacked, and counterbalanced; masses held in equilibrium that evoke the logic of the surrounding rock formations,’ say the architects.
These stacked volumes embrace the sloping site to create a garage and cellar topped by a large ground floor with a study and spacious living space and kitchen. The latter comes with a long counter integrating a large rock. It continues outside to form an outdoor kitchen worktop supported by a boulder. The floor-to-ceiling windows open onto a courtyard with a small pool, the rock formations composing a stunning natural backdrop.
Upstairs are two further floors housing three bedrooms, two bathrooms (with concrete walls rather than tiles), a TV lounge and a dressing room. Solid oak details and handmade pieces of furniture and joinery add warmth to the minimalist interiors throughout, while light flows into the space through carefully positioned openings.
‘The interior unfolds as a sequence of sheltered spaces opened toward the landscape, generating a system of chiaroscuro that continuously transforms the perception of space,’ write the architects. ‘In the private areas, openings are strategic, facing east and south in a cave-like condition with limited apertures that temper the harsh sunlight of the plateau.’
The light also reveals the different textures of the concrete construction, created by the imprint of three types of timber. There are vertical pine planks sandblasted to highlight their natural grain; smooth horizontal formwork; and diagonal sections designed to evoke the region’s local órganos cactus.
A row of actual cacti forms a natural boundary on one side of the residence’s courtyard, while other local plants such as mesquite trees and desert palms are incorporated naturally throughout the space, symbolically extending the Sierra into the design. To the east, another organic border is provided by a seasonal stream that carries runoff from the surrounding hills during the rainy season.
‘The landscape operates as an active boundary and an extension of the interior space, integrating into the everyday experience of inhabitation,’ says the SDM team. ‘The site itself becomes an inhabitant of the house rather than an external backdrop. To inhabit the house is to inhabit the territory – a fundamental principle within the studio’s architectural practice.’
Sober and rigorous, the design lets the surrounding environment take the lead. ‘The result is an architecture that, through its silence, does not impose order upon the landscape,’ hope its architects.
