m Aquitectura｜Mexico's most sculptural villa

Local construction firm m Aquitectura was commissioned to design a family home in an alley in the colonial era city of San Miguel de Allende in the highlands of central Mexico, which is famous for its baroque Spanish architecture, which has to do with clumsy shapes and high slopes. The designer's solution is: a slender two-storey cantilevered structure facing the street, open to the outside and facing a vast garden that occupies more than half the ground. Designed as a tight combination of cubic volume and rectangular plane, the concrete structure is full of lightness, which is further enhanced by its sculptural feel thanks to the large glass opening with ceramic and steel elements.

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Driving into the carriageway, the welcome is an elevation; supported by two steel columns and covered with square tiles, a low-cost material that corresponds with the town's historic courtyard, the five-metre-high elevation is designed to ensure privacy while also making a bold architectural statement. The stairs from the street parking lot to the first-floor entrance are built with locally sourced stone, their organic shape and the linear design of the concrete structure.

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Entering the house through a peachwood door from floor to ceiling, you enter an open living space centered on a two-story high living room, adjacent dining area, kitchen, and study/TV room, the latter of which can disappear into the walls by translucent sliding door arrangement. The well-lit space is surrounded by courtyard doors and windows, with magnificent views of the garden, and cleverly extended the garden by designing a concrete platform below, which was one of the main reasons designers raised the house in the first place.

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The glass-enclosed staircase protruding from the main building volume provides a buffer between the social area on the lower level and the private area of the family upstairs. Thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows in both the master bedroom and the children's bedroom, the floor has plenty of natural light and a wide view. The former leads to a large terrace where a grid wall made of sloping concrete slabs provides both shade and privacy, very similar to the vertical planks of the second bedroom. Supporting the minimalist aesthetic of simple lines and simple forms, materials such as bare concrete and white peach heart wood add a touch to the minimalist interior, and waterstones and tiles add more texture to the mix. The result is a soft and tender canvas brought to life by the interaction of light and the greenery that awaits in every corner.
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