Pixel 57 / Darkitectura

Pixel 57 / Darkitectura - Windows, FacadePixel 57 / Darkitectura - Lighting, Stairs, Beam, Windows, HandrailPixel 57 / Darkitectura - CityscapePixel 57 / Darkitectura - Stairs, Facade, Handrail, Steel, BeamPixel 57 / Darkitectura - More Images+ 7

Mexico City, Mexico
  • Architects: Darkitectura: Julio Juarez
  • Area Area of this architecture project Area:  480
  • Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2009
  • Photographs
    Photographs:Yoshihiro Koitani

Text description provided by the architects. Located south of Mexico City, with a lakeside subsurface inheritance of the legendary Aztec lake, it develops this 480m2 duplex in a slim residual plot.

Pixel 57 / Darkitectura - Windows, Facade
© Yoshihiro Koitani

Given the extensive program that customers requested, the 2 houses are resolved intertwined and interspersed within the maximum permissible restrictions, generating a large cube that blends with its dense urban environment "kitsch-ecléctico-chilango" developed in the 70's and 80's.

Pixel 57 / Darkitectura - Facade
© Yoshihiro Koitani

The cube floats to accommodate the access, parking and green areas, it’s separated from their adjacencies to become transparent, giving way to natural light and vertical circulation; also it’s subtracted to create a courtyard and as the exterior faces they parametrically pixel to locate the windows, balconies and skylights. The materials used on the facades cause a scene of brightness and opacity, reflections and shadows that combined with the irregularity of some canopies enhance the effect of asymmetry.

Pixel 57 / Darkitectura - Shelving, Stairs, Handrail
© Yoshihiro Koitani

Hanging from the top of the rear facade, a staircase reminiscent of a New York alley leads to the roof terrace that houses a pair of fake containers superimposed for services, this in the midst of a huge terrace where grows a micro-forest of “liquidambares”, typical tree species of the area. This terrace reinforces the idea of roofs used as a method for reforestation of the city and gradually improves the quality of life for users to have these spaces, denied in 90% of the outbuildings that are volumetrically similar.

Pixel 57 / Darkitectura - Shelving, Table, Chair, Beam
© Yoshihiro Koitani

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Cite: "Pixel 57 / Darkitectura" 19 Nov 2010. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/89432/pixel-57-darkitectura> ISSN 0719-8884

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