Project: House and Studio Anaya
Architects: Vrtical
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Area: 2,066 sf
Year: 2022
Photographs by: Oscar Hernandez
House and Studio Anaya by Vrtical
House and Studio Anaya, designed by Vrtical in Ciudad De Mexico, is a unique project that combines elements from different architectural styles. The ground floor was transformed by replacing load-bearing walls with steel columns and creating flexible gates, connecting the space with small natural oases. The upper level features preserved original elements, such as colorful bathrooms and skylights, while the façade underwent changes in openings to achieve symmetry. This house, inhabited for short periods, serves as a refuge and study for a writer and architecture researcher, evoking memories of a specific time in Mexico City’s history. It is a testament to the project’s ability to blend modernity with a nod to the past.
The original language of this house, at first glance, does not fit into any particular trend, yet its appearance seems to belong to a time and social class that settled in the Education Colony in the 1960s.
The project arose from the possibility of restructuring the entire ground floor, surgically demolishing three load-bearing walls, and replacing them with cross-shaped steel columns and lintels. These elements gave the rules for the new pasta and terrace floor sections. At the same time, we made very flexible gates in their opening, and transformed the garage and back patio into small natural oases, connecting the ground floor and thus changing its rules of inhabiting. The upper level was also intervened in its finishes, some of which recall the original state, as in the colorful bathrooms. That cute idea of articulating spaces on the top floor through skylights was also rescued, some of them introspective, with atmospheric tributes, as in the golden skylight of the staircase or the window of the master bedroom. On the façade, small big changes were proposed in the position and size of the existing openings, seeking new symmetry and proportions that were almost written into the original design, all accentuated with the colors of the façade.
Currently, the house is inhabited for short periods of the year, and it should be mentioned that it is the base of a writer and architecture researcher and therefore has become a kind of refuge/study that evokes memories of a space and time in Mexico City.
