First of all, to preserve as far as possible the rocky spirit found, an immense sea of stones, particularly two enormous pieces of more than two meters in diameter in the center of the terrain. The second, dilute the scale of the house in the topography with more than 17 meters of difference in level from the lowest point; looking for the equilibrium point where the sea appeared, the wind flowed and the existing rock at the heart of the project slipped under the portico-house to blur the boundaries between the natural terrain and human interventions.
The big challenge was to scale in sight the size of the house, by solving a simple scheme where the ¨plaza¨ unfolds from the stony ground and a simple portico houses at its highest level the four rooms of the intimate program to almost settle on the central stone, and then slide into the topography.
The complexity of the house is not found in the simple regular scheme, but in the encounters with the nature of the stones, the trees and the existing topography. The target was to create completely open social areas with only a few closed elements such as the main kitchen and the television room but always seeing and honoring the rocks.
Reduce the architecture to a minimum to find in the frames and infinite horizons of the pool, the sea and the jungle the spatial construction of the spaces. A house that has no front or rear, but opens to various landscapes with the same hierarchy; finding in the different levels the opportunity to house the service areas, cisterns, warehouses and a small independent department; creating terraces and rest areas with different opportunities for views and sunning in close dialogue with nature. The staircase is an axis that runs through all levels, from the parking lot to the rooms floor, in a straight line, sometimes contained between walls and others in tension with the rock and the spaces.
The structural system of the portico, covers with just a few centimeters of separation from the central stone a clearing of more than 12 meters long with two solid slabs 20 centimeters thick that reach fine 3×6-inch ptrs that are again opened to observe the stone, without beams or intermediate columns. This action is possible thanks to the vierendeel beam accomplished by the last two slabs and the dividing walls of the rooms, which at the same time allow the south and north facades to be completely freed from any bearing element; looking for the cross wind in all spaces to avoid the use of artificial systems as well as to promote natural light and ventilation of any service.
The use of a single material, concrete with color, product of the mix of cement and local sand achieves the colour of the local beaches. Apparent cast concrete walls and washed and anti-slip floors, with low light reflection but also of low thermal absorption were important to be able to walk without shoes around the whole house. The formwork wood was reused to make lattices and light structures, as well as the stone produced by the same excavations was used to define terraces and containments. Intelligent solar panel systems for the pool and photovoltaic systems for electrical energy as well as water treatment systems make the house practically autonomous from the local infrastructure.
Project name: Casa Piedra Acapulco or Stone House
Architects: Taller Gabriela Carrillo – https://gabrielacarrillo.mx/
Location: Acapulco, Mexico
Area: 700 m²
Year: 2020
Photographer: Rafael Gamo – http://www.rafaelgamo.com/
Architects In Charge: Gabriela Carrillo
Collaborators: Fernando Rodríguez, Karim Gómez
Construction: Gerardo Carrillo de Isolbi, Rodrigo Analco
Structural Engineering: Grupo Sai, Gerson Huerta
Installations: Gerardo Carrillo de Isolbi
Landscape Design Architect: Entorno Taller, Tonatiuh Martínez
Model: Francisco Ortiz
Visualizations: Pedro Lechuga
Program: Vivienda
I Am Running Down the Long Hallway of Viewmont Elementary by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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