墨西哥 Melón House 别墅 | 生活与工作的亲密空间

The path we travel everyday as architects is uncertain and complicated in many aspects, and at the same time it’s magical and gratifying, a way of living. Our work manifests our thinking and our searches, becoming in these few years a resistance to circumstances. We want to continue growing, exploring, learning, risking and resisting this path.

Through our experience we identify how valuable it is to know the people we design as well as possible, if possible, we try to get intimate with them. We understand this as a vital verb to understand and relate to our environment and those around us, which we try to reflect in our architectural narrative: intimacy has become a starting point that allows us to identify important aspects, particularities and wishes of people, their perspective and their vision.

Melón House represents an approach to the intimate wishes of its inhabitants. Its materialization is the sample of a custom-designed and built space, a very personal proposal and at the same time integrated in harmony with its community, like the new gear of a mechanism. Located in a neighborhood with strong neighbourhood ownership in Morelia city, the project has its roots in the idea of giving a sense of belonging of a marriage with their community, where the daily activities, uses and inhabitants of the area are an important factor in creating a work that dialogues with all these scenarios.

Both the constructive process and technical follow-up stages are certainly no less valuable. On the contrary, the preliminary perceptions and expectations of what was built in that place, generating an involuntary but valuable participation and integration of the neighbors and passers-by on Melón street with Papaya for several months, until they finally realized that the final narrative was the natural and honest expression of their exposed materials, with no additional layers or coatings: timeless and consistent like the primal tools and techniques of construction.

The program was developed according to the needs and hobbies of the couple, as well as the relationship of the project with their environment. Outside, the project is isolated on the ground floor to give privacy to the living spaces, while on the upper level, a large window allows the entrance of daylight in the studio, which is opened to the outside and dialogues with its urban context -where small windows predominate-. Inside, an interior patio protects the private spaces, creating an interesting play of light and shadows through checkered windows and blacksmiths.

Beyond a private space, Melón House is understood as a living studio, giving a new meaning to the living machine. Through the use of concrete, steel, glass and wood, a sober and transparent dynamic is generated that allows to experiment and design modulated spaces, open to possibilities of various natures.