Can concrete be contemplative? Step inside a Mexican suburban household house the place smooth mild and enclosed areas rule

HW Studio has accomplished a exceptional new home within the city of Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Occupying a nook web site in a low-rise suburb of most unremarkable two-storey homes, Casa Tao stands out as a sculptural mass of concrete. Harking back to one among Tadao Ando’s extra summary mid-period Tokyo residences, the home is the work of Morelia-based HW Studio.

Beneath the auspices of lead architect Rogelio Vallejo Bores, together with the studio’s Oscar Didier Ascencio Castro and Nik Zaret Cervantes Ordaz, the Tao Home emerges from this unlikely context with serenity and precision. Organized throughout 4 ranges, the home is outlined by the curved concrete wall that encloses the positioning, main in the direction of the second degree (or the primary flooring, in European parlance).

A drone’s-eye view of the home showcases the fastidiously stage-managed geometry, with a round planter screening the doorway from the road and the slim concrete wall rising up because it curves round. Tucked in behind it’s a lightwell that serves the three en-suite bedrooms on the primary degree (at floor degree).

The primary residing area is situated on the higher degree, which is outlined as a big concrete field rising up above the curved wall. Along with a double-height kitchen, eating and residing area, top-lit by neatly outlined excessive degree home windows, these concrete lined areas additionally include an higher gallery, full with workplace and library space.

Designed for photographer and aesthete Gustavo Quiroz and Cynthia Rosaura Sandoval, the architects got down to form an area that conjured up Quiroz’s recollections of his childhood and the significance of sunshine, area and materials. ‘He grew up in a humble home made extra of effort than of supplies,’ the architects say, ‘[As a child, he lived] in Puerto Vallarta, a spot on the Pacific coast of Mexico, the place solar and humidity outline the rhythm of the times, and the place shade shouldn’t be an accident, however a treasured asset – a real refuge.’

To recapture these sensations and the necessary relationship with the solar and shade, mild and darkish, HW Studio have given the bedrooms a cave-like atmosphere, with the one illumination coming from the glazed wall wanting into the lightwell. Even the basement has its personal lightwell, whereas the fastidiously managed lighting within the residing space emphasises darkish corners and hidden voids.

The architects have managed to deal with the ‘idea of shade’ as an ‘emotional situation: a promise of calm, of breath, of silent safety in opposition to a clamorous world.’ Even the slender pool, set between two excessive concrete partitions, reads as a hidden oasis tucked away from the solar.

Earlier than commissioning the home, Quiroz and his younger household undertook a major journey to Japan, the place they revelled within the ‘aesthetics of vacancy, compositional cleanliness, the stillness contained in each architectural gesture.’ In response to HW Studio, a part of the transient was to make them ‘really feel as if we have been residing inside a Japanese museum.’

By putting all of the service areas, together with the bedrooms and storage, on the base of the home, the architects have been capable of give the social lifetime of the construction its personal discrete area, shielded from the road.

This insular sequence of areas is outlined by the curve of the wall, the fastidiously sited planting and the Zen Backyard on the upper-level deck. ‘The elevated patios act as terraces for contemplation,’ say the architects, ‘small platforms from which to higher breathe the scent of flowers and listen to the murmur of wind among the many treetops.’

The interior world of the bedrooms contrasts strongly with the extra expansive residing areas, and even these solely open themselves as much as the outside on their very own phrases; it’s a home that seems closed off from the neighbourhood, providing an invite reasonably than a sequence of public going through statements. ‘Every thing is organized in order that residing occurs in a slower, fuller manner – extra open to the invisible,’ say the architects.

The selection of concrete felt pure, and never simply due to its hyperlink to serene Japanese homes. It was a manner of avoiding dazzling daylight, as a substitute filtering rays via a smooth, absorbent floor that doesn’t scatter mild however shapes it. In consequence, the restrained varieties and shapes of the partitions and cell-like rooms turn out to be extra contemplative. ‘Each nook invitations one to stay, to not cross via, and each shadow is a promise of well-being,’ in line with HW Studio.