Project: Akúun House
Architects: Arkham Projects
Location: Merida, Mexico
Area: 11,065 sf
Photographs by: Yoshihiro Koitani
Akúun House by Arkham Projects
Arkham Projects has completed the Akúun House project in Merida, Mexico. This is a single-story family residence placed on a beautifully landscape plot surrounded by vegetation. The 11,000 square feet of modern living spaces make use of glazed surfaces that showers the interior with light and opens it up to spectacular views. This is not the only project we’ve showcased from this studio so make sure to check out their work on the Relo House.
It is a project to enjoy Yucatan, its sky, its wind and its vegetation. The footprint of the house is just one fifth of the land extension, always leaving free space and vegetation as the protagonist. Open in its entirety to the north and south to be able to generate comfort in terms of winds and sunlight in all spaces, and views towards the vegetation, which generates a green barrier all around the property, and as a result, a absolute privacy for users in each space, at all times.
Casa Akúun, or in Spanish “casa Álamo”, is a house of almost seventy meters in length, which is virtually divided by a tree of this species, located in a patio that is trapped between the public and private areas of the house. Part of the intention of the house is to be able to join the interior with the exterior, forgetting barriers and ensuring that it can be walked from side to side with total freedom.
The property has the characteristic of adjoining three roads, which allowed the project to have two completely opposite accesses, both in location and experience of use. The first is the day-to-day, where the garage is located, as well as the access to the private areas of the house, where the route is in the south-west part of the house, a space surrounded by vegetation from every angle, where a green passage welcomes those who inhabit it, hugging them, leaving the city behind. The second access is the social one, from the north-eastern part, which also has a route through pre-existing vegetation, but in more open spaces, which allows the possibility of observing the house from afar; this route ends with a large Pich (Guanacaste tree) located next to the access esplanade, the outer anteroom of the social space.
