Natural Connection
House Agua, Mexico ViGa arquitectos, Mexico
Casa Agua begins with the intention of remodelling and expanding a house from the 70s to adapt it to its new users. As part of a sustainable approach, it is intended to take advantage of the existing reticular structure, respecting the load- bearing walls and columns, but always with the idea of opening the space to its maximum.
The house can be described through its circulation. The access to the house begins with a walkthrough next to the front garden that leads to an exterior patio, which frames the main entrance,
after passing a threshold on a smaller scale. Once entering the house, this scale is increased into a double height hall that is visualized as a wooden box that functions as a patio. Flooded with natural light and crossed by a bridge, this hall becomes the pivot of the house which links the horizontal spaces— public and service— with the vertical ones– private. On the ground floor, the carpentry hides the structure in order to lighten the volume and allow the visual continuity of the open space. The stairs that lead to the private area of the house are confined to one side of the double height.
The landscape is thought as a series of spaces from where the house can be seen from