Firmamento House | Agraz Arquitectos S.C.

Text by Ana Guerrerosantos

Firmamento House has plenty of unusual things, the land where it is for instance. It was bought in the 70’s and its owner decided to build until now. It is not common to build land and wait for almost forty years to build.

Second, it is also unusual for an elderly couple to build a new house with new furniture too. And third, it is also not often to ask for a single floor house, but due to their age, they did so.

It is quite rare too to leave a considerable piece of land in the front for a garden that goes out to the street, adding up to the public space, instead of making it private. It happens this way in this project because it is an elder couple who doesn’t need a backyard for playing at all. And while there is a golf course on the back, green is a surplus and this invites the generosity of giving the front yard to the street making the project absolutely different.

As for all the rest, these special conditions created the general program of the house, making the spaces where this couple spends the day, face the golf course. Therefore kitchen, living, dining room, studio, master bedroom and terraces look to the fairway and only two bedrooms –used by the grandchildren when they spend the night over- don’t.

The garage is on a side entrance and this is why the cars don’t make part of the façade, leaving part of this area for a front patio that recalls the long time Guadalajara tradition of the “zaguan”. It is a transitional area for outside and inside, leading to the lobby of the house where a piece of Adrian Guerrero, plastic artist, is. The piece has a series of perforations that let the Sun and moonlight go by, recreating the firmament as it was the day the owner of the house was born. This is an homage to him, and it is where the name of the house was taken.

Firmamento House is the sum of all these unusual things, which give as a result a terribly exiting project.

Datasheet

Location:

Santa Anita Golf Club

Tlajomulco, Jalisco, Mexico

Date:

Project: 2011

Completion date: 2013

Authors:

Agraz Arquitectos

Ricardo Agraz

Manager project:

Gabriela Villarreal

Collaborators:

Miguel Sánchez

Juan Antonio Jaime

Humberto Dueñas

Blanca Moreno

Marc Steven Fernández

Javier H. Aguirre

Brenda Barrón

Javier Gutiérrez

Erick Martínez

Gabriel Gómez

Raúl Estrada

Oscar Aguirre

Fernanda Palma

Jessica Magaña

Construction:

Constructora DIO

José Luis Navarro López

Nicolás Orozco Díaz

Photography:

Mito Covarrubias

Renders:

RM3 Studio

Site area: 977.34 m2

Construction area: 495.88 m2