Chilean studio Elemental has created a spherical concrete home referred to as Casa del Tec outdoors of Monterrey, Mexico that’s the prize of a raffle that funds increased schooling on the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey.
Accomplished in 2022 in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León, the three-storey textured strengthened concrete shell serves as a shell for the 600 square-metre residence.
“We’ve got at all times been struck by the double situation of castles,” Elemental mentioned.
“They’re fortresses turned inwards, defending one thing inside that we can’t see and concurrently they’re a robust, monumental, summary presence on this planet.”
The studio described the undertaking as introverted by not shy.
“[It’s] a spot that nearly silently takes care of personal life and on the similar time a spot that’s inevitably a declaration of ideas in public life.”
The round plan mitigates the connection of private and non-private areas and responds to the triangular form of the location by orienting in all instructions.
The inside opens to the environment by means of arched home windows whose clean parabolic subtractions reveal the depth of the ribbed concrete wall, which serves as a thermal mass for the house’s local weather management.
The entry is on the second stage, the place there are two bedrooms with corresponding terraces, a lounge space and a four-car storage.
A modern picket staircase connects to {a partially} subterranean floor flooring that’s totally glazed, creating a lightweight house beneath the heavy concrete shell.
The bottom stage – containing a kitchen and eating room – opens to a landscaped courtyard with a pool and barbecue space.
The first bed room sits on the highest flooring with a toilet, dressing room and expansive terrace that appears out to the neighbouring mountains by means of an inverted-arch cut-out.
The degrees are related by a glazed vertical void that gives continuity and light-weight for every room.
“A single look permits to cowl the entire top of the home, from the bottom flooring to the open sky,” the studio mentioned.
The inside – designed by Línea Vertical – makes use of stone, marble and cuéramo wooden.
Darkish gray flooring and partitions make the inexperienced and pink materials and leathers stand out, whereas lithographs and sculptures by Mexican artists stability the areas.
The house would be the first prize of the 213th Conventional Tec raffle on 22 December 2022 to assist scholarships for the Leaders of Tomorrow program. The prize consists of two luxurious autos that will likely be raffled with the home.
Alejandro Aravena, Elemental principal and 2016 Pritzker Prize winner, remarked on the transformation of structure into schooling by means of the Sorteos Tec program.
The home produces “a standard good; one thing comparable to what’s achieved by means of social housing,” he mentioned.
“That’s what one as an architect seeks to attain on a regular basis: to contribute to the frequent good by means of a piece.”
Elemental is finest recognized for its work in incremental social housing however has not too long ago accomplished a concrete home with a monumental chimney on the Chilean coast and an outsized Jenga-inspired mass for the Innovation Middle UC in Santiago.
The pictures is by The Raws, Paco Álvarez.
Undertaking credit:
Architects: ELEMENTAL, Alejandro Aravena, Gonzalo Arteaga, Víctor Oddó, Diego Torres, Juan Cerda (lead)
Workforce: André Barros, Carla Donato, Diego Teran, Mara Cruz, Federica Tebaldi
Structural engineering: SODICO ingeniería y Diseño, Raúl and Jorge Santos
Constructor: EDAGA, Homero Galindo
Inside structure: Línea Vertical, Ana Landa
