Casa JIMA

Jurica, a suburban area in the city of Querétaro, is a development designed by Legorreta Arquitectos in the 1960s with a rural vocation. Over the years, it has evolved into a green lung for the city, characterized by tall trees. Today, it attracts young couples seeking a connection with nature and constructions that can be experienced from within, in contrast to the new typologies of residential developments in Mexico's suburbs in recent years.
 
She is an entrepreneur, and he is an advertiser. They share a love for cooking, nature, music, design, reading, and silence. Two teenage girls complete the family.
 
Adapting to their tastes and needs, the house is organized in a "C" shape, closing off towards the street and opening private and communal spaces to a central garden facing south. This design isolates the project completely from external noise.
 
The 15-meter frontage and 33-meter depth of the plot are enriched while respecting the presence of 3 ash trees in the front and 3 neighboring jacarandas with heights exceeding 12 meters.
 
The entrance pays homage to the ash trees. Upon crossing the street door, a courtyard encloses the largest ash tree, and another courtyard within encloses another ash tree. Their shadows reflect on the facades throughout the morning.
 
The entire project speak through the floors to create a language that distinguishes different areas, providing unique sensations and supporting the lighting intention in each.
 
On the ground floor, the front houses the parking and entrance, distinguished from the rest of the house by a cobblestone that emulates the one from the street. It ends up entering the main garden through a portico or threshold that crosses the first volume, offering a subtle and gradual transition from exterior to interior.
 
This volume contains services and a very particular enclosed space that connects the guest bathroom with one of the cedars, forming a patio that embraces and contains it.
 
Horizontal and vertical circulations, directly connected to the street entrance, unite both parts of the house, completing the "C" and providing time and pause for the user to disconnect from street life and reach home.
 
The flooring in these two sections blends with the black walls and metal structures, using black marble tiles, indicating that this is not the final space in the journey; these are the most public areas of the house.
 
At the back of the property, the social area opens to the east and the central garden, extending interior spaces through a terrace that hides a small pool, taking advantage of outdoor moments and the Queretaro climate.
 
On the upper floor, in the front, there is a TV room, guest room, and a music studio.
 
In the back, the girls' room and the master bedroom open to the east, receiving morning light and framing the three front cedars.
 
Two skylights, at the end of the journey to the rooms and just above the stairs, receive muted light due to their height and depth, connecting the views to the sky and allowing glimpses of the branches of the cedars and jacarandas.
 
The green presence of the trees and the void of the central garden are magnified with vegetation inside, on the terraces, and in the guest bathroom patio.
 
Externally, the house is black, aiming to disappear among the ash trees of the facade, offering a neutral setting with pigmented finishes that change with the reflections of the sun, rainwater, or the shade of the trees.
 
This is complemented by charred oak wood wainscoting on the ground floor base, both at the entrance and in the guest bathroom patio, creating texture and scale in the journey from the street entrance to the house.
 
Internally, Santo Tomás marble floors in public areas and herringbone-patterned Mexican oak parquet in the bedrooms accompany the light tones of walls and ceilings, providing greater brightness and distinction. Brown and beige colors in the floors are used for communal living spaces and the more private areas of the home.
 
Only the spaces illuminated by the two skylights remain in black, emphasizing the drama of the relationship between space and light.
 
This house reflects the client's need to be completely isolated from the street while being closely connected to immediate nature. The exterior serves as a black canvas, drawing the silhouettes of the trees on its faces. Internally, it is a completely sensory project that guides you through the house, distinguishing transit zones from resting areas, as well as public spaces from intimate ones.