Mexican architecture studio Productora has designed a tiled house in Nuevo León that is slated to be raffled off in the annual Tecnológico de Monterrey fundraiser.
Known as Casa Oliva, the 500-square metre (5,380-square foot) residence is the sixteenth Author’s House and is the first prize in the 127th Traditional SorteoTEC Raffle, following Casa Elemental, which was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Alejandro Aravena in 2022.
This year’s grand prize residence is located on a 598-square metre (6,436-square foot) wedge-shaped, sloped lot in Santa Catarina.
“We understand Casa Oliva as an essay in spatiality and simplicity – an exercise in reduction, honesty and clarity,” Productora told Dezeen.
The ground floor, which houses the public spaces, is clad in grey-toned aluminium sheeting and large expanses of glass. The street side of the house is closed off for privacy but the rear rooms open to the garden through floor-to-ceiling glass windows and sliding doors.
“One of the challenges was to minimize the amount of materials to be used in the house and to clearly express the idea of these two overlapping volumes,” the team said.
A strong datum line divides the two levels, and the upper floor, which houses the private sleeping quarters, lounge and office, is wrapped in a locally manfactured sage green concrete tile, which turns the façade of the house to form a small overhanging soffit.
The sawtooth roof was informed from the surrounding mountain profile and translates to a series of sloped ceilings on the inside. Small square windows punctuate the upper facade while protecting from the extreme climate.
The staggered layout of the ground floor in plan allows the house to accommodate the sloping topography and becomes a set of stair-stepped platforms moving toward the back of the house. The offset entry leads to the main double-height living room that connects the upper and lower levels and allows for cross-ventilation both horizontally and vertically.
“It is here that three-dimensional spatial relations and diagonal visuals are established in all directions and that the central staircase is located,” the team said.
The ground floor is characterized by a series of rounded columns, clad in dark green ceramic tile, that form a diagonal line from the studio, through the seating areas, and out to the back patio.
“We love to work with a reduced palette of warm, generous and tactile materials,” the team said. “To design a house that can be used in many flexible ways and can accommodate different ways of inhabiting it.”
“What makes the project unique is the warm wooden environment that follows the topography of the site, through small level changes: it creates a very rich, layered and complex space that is simultaneously very calm and soothing as well. “
In addition to the double-layered, insulated wall system, the design employs a Novidesa slab system manufactured with expanded polystyrene for thermal control and can be sectioned off internally for compartmentalized mechanical cooling to reduce energy costs.
Continuing the studio’s signature green accent, Productora recently converted a Mexico City textile factory into a set of green-trimmed artist studios and teamed up with Esrawe Studio to outfit a hotel in San Miguel de Allende with green tile.
The photography is by Paco Álvarez.
Project credits:
Architecture and Interiors: Productora
Client: Sorteo TEC
