by 
HW studio arquitectos has successfully completed an unnamed house in Mexico. The story of this project begins with a robbery that happened to a family, namely Paola and Jorge. While they were going to the movies one afternoon, as they were out, the couple saw a group of thieves cross the neighbor’s house who then broke into their house. In this incident, everything that was considered valuable was stolen. Both partners feel insecure, afraid and helpless. However, this experience motivated them to build a new home with an extra level of security.
HW studio was trusted in the design process, ultimately concluding the three variables that are trying to be understood in depth and from which all the elements arise. Place, being the first element in this case. The house must be very close to the Morelia aqueduct, the architectural gem that supplied the city with water in the XIV century. The client, during the design process, the architect found that they were quite loyal to the Catholic religion. This is evident from the many images of saints, figures of Christ, and baroque furniture around their homes. The last element is ourselves, where we use vipassana as an observation technique.
After exhaustive research, the architects aimed to understand Paola and Jorge spiritual quest and their religious devotion. The roof was reshaped to evoke the barrel vaults seen in Mexican Catholic temples, thereby stripping the home of that type of decoration but not of its spirit.
The introspective architecture was required because of the robbery incident that gave rise to this project. It had to be sealed from the outside, with no windows or openings, and had to complete lighting the house through the porch. This way not only reinforces the sacred space-like atmosphere of the temple, but also allows us to continue to understand the substance-emptiness relationship in architectural projects.
designer: HW studio arquitectos
