Architecture News Plus (ANP) – Architecture and Design Magazine

Ozuluama Residence

This is a project by Architects Collective + at.103 and it is located at Mexico City, Mexico. It was submitted to Architecture News Plus (ANP) by Architects Collective. Project's program: Single family penthouse. There are nineteen images for Ozuluama Residence.

: © Architects Collective

Project details

Project name: Ozuluama Residence
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Program: Single family penthouse
Area: Site area: 150 m2 • Floor area: 120 m2 • Gross floor area: 125 m2
Year: Planning: June 2004 • Construction start: October 2007 • Completion: May 2008
More details: Cubage: 500 m3 • Construction: steel frame • Façade material: Corian by DuPont
Client: Lazaro & Yoshua Okon
Project by: Architects Collective + at.103
Team: Collaborators: Kurt Sattler, Julio Amezcua, Francisco Pardo
Others: Structural consultant: Colinas de Buen • Façade consultant: Vilcre • Contractor: Factor Eficiencia • Façade: Gabriela Diaz • Kitchen: Angel Sanchez • Marble floor: Santo Thomas

Project images

Designer's statement

Origami in Mexico City:

In the heart of Mexico City lies the Condesa district created around what was once a racetrack and today a unique and vibrant neighborhood of the city. The project is located at an intersection of Condesa’s tree-lined streets and consists of a penthouse with two terraces and a lookout on top of an existing 3-story building.

The new roof top appears like a nomadic structure floating above the diverse urban topography of Mexico City. The owners inhabit the penthouse six months of the year and the rest of the time it is used by friends, visitors and artists that stay in the city.

The structure was designed to reflect the movements of its transient inhabitants in an origami-like morphology. The folding dynamic form creates a seemingly temporary habitat with continuous inside and outside spaces on two levels and generous views of the city.

The building’s skeleton is made of steel and is completely enveloped in pearl-grey acrylic-polymer Corian panels, the first time this material was used as an entire building envelope. Overhangs and the thoughtful orientation of interior spaces and openings moderate the climate of the penthouse, which can also be adjusted by providing cross ventilation through operable windows in the glass façade and at the highest point of the roof construction.

The floors covering the entire penthouse -- from the moment you enter, to the moment you step into the bathtub -- are of Santo Tomas marble, a local stone usually employed as flooring in the city’s subway stations, churches and other public spaces. Thus the echoes of the outside are folded in quietly into a private space, further re-enforcing the notion of a transient, temporal habitat.