Project: Martha House
Architects: Arquitectura nativa
Architectural Design: Alfredo Navarro Tiznado
Builder: Pedro Luis Curiel Bojorquez
Location: La Misión, Mexico
Area: 310 m²
Year: 2021
Photo credits: Oscar Daniel Hernandez Rodriguez
Martha House is the home of an archaeologist, so it is designed with rudimental and artisanal techniques, conceived with the aim of unifying time, form, and context through its composition and materiality of ancestral origin.
The architectural program contemplated a retirement home for a couple, Martha and Bill, as well as a space for the plastic arts. A simple development was proposed, blending in with the site and with minimal intervention. A dialogue between three volumes embedded in the site and oriented towards the Pacific Ocean from a clear axis.
The first level is divided into two areas, the visitor area is made up of two rooms, and the study area can function as a painting and carpentry workshop or as a garage. On the second level, the core of the house is found: the entertainment room, dining room, and kitchen make up the access threshold with large windows and porches woven with salt pine. This lattice generates, in turn, protection from the prevailing winds, as well as a component of privacy towards the interior, generating a play of light and shadows. At the back of the social area, there is a staircase that leads to the third level where the main chamber is located, which has a view of the context’s landscape, in this space the interior is blurred with the exterior.
Casa Martha arises and is modeled with deep sensitivity and respect for its surroundings. The main construction element is compacted earth, in this way the site and its topography are consolidated as the raw materials of the project.
