Casa Refúgio, located in the suburbs of Santiago de Querétaro, was conceived as a residence that values family life, flexibility, and intimacy, especially in an increasingly dense urban setting.
Casa Refúgio, located in the suburbs of Santiago de Querétaro, was conceived as a residence that values family life, flexibility, and intimacy, especially in an increasingly dense urban setting.
Externally, the building presents itself as a contained and almost hermetic block, designed to protect the interior and create an atmosphere of serenity upon approach. Access to the house is gradual, slowly revealing the social area—composed of the living room, dining room, and kitchen—where an extensive backyard serves as a visual boundary, allowing vegetation to envelop the walls.
In this space, the visual focus is contained and intimate, and curtains help soften the area, keeping it present but without total exposure. The staircase, inserted into a cradle vault, functions as the central axis of the house, connecting the different floors, filtering light, and following the daily rhythm of the residents.
On the ground floor, the family office is integrated with an internal garden featuring a double-height ceiling. A large window permeates this space, establishing a constant link between the space, the vegetation, and the variable light throughout the year. In the late afternoon, stained glass windows on the roof project colors onto the walls of the internal patio, creating a place conducive to contemplation. Parallelly, the bedrooms on this level extend into gardens, promoting a natural and personal environment.
The second floor houses the master suite, organized around a voluminous exposed concrete curved element. This component subtly conceals the bathroom area, avoiding the rigidity of orthogonal or completely closed divisions, defining the space and facilitating the transition between bedroom and bathroom.
A circular skylight above the bathtub directly illuminates the space, transforming the bathing moment into a tranquil pause. In contrast, a workspace opens up to the double-height ceiling of the downstairs living room, maintaining visual and auditory communication. The project avoids isolating the floors, seeking to maintain proximity among inhabitants and allow life to flow between different levels without the need for constant movement.
On the terrace, the function of the house changes; the elements that introduce light—such as domes, skylights, and curved forms—appear as independent structures. Initially conceived as a meditation space, this level has been adapted for leisure, where architecture transcends the function of mere container and becomes a backdrop.
In summary, Casa Refúgio establishes a way of living sensitive to temporal changes, being a dwelling that adapts and accompanies life according to the season or time of day. This sensitivity is reflected in the interaction with the landscape, present in all rooms through controlled patios and gardens, ensuring that nature is close. The project aims to prevent the floors from becoming isolated units, configuring them as interconnected spaces through visuals, sounds, and daily presence, keeping domestic life active between the environments.
Casa Óculo, a single-family residence located in a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Palma, was conceived based on a notably simple yet bold architectural gesture: an extensive flat roof extending from east to west. The project uses light, materiality, and climate as central pillars of its conception.
The rational form of the house was shaped to respond to a south-facing slope, offering expansive views of the mountains and meeting the needs of a structured client program. The final result is a contemporary Mediterranean home that manages to harmonize efficiency, tactile sensitivity, and a strong sense of belonging.
The roof is supported by a series of load-bearing walls coated with lime mortar, arranged along the north-south axis. These walls play an organizational role in the spaces, establish the rhythm of the building, and function as visual filters. They protect the sides from adjacent plots while framing wide and directed views towards the south and the mountains. Furthermore, this orientation optimizes natural cross-ventilation, ensuring continuous passive thermal comfort throughout the year.
The vast roof acts as a protective element surrounding the house, generating generous verandas around the perimeter. These shaded transition areas soften the boundary between the interior and exterior environment, providing sun protection during hotter months and allowing the house to be used adaptably in any season.
On the main terrace, a central component stands out: a solar oculus cut into the roof. This oculus has the geometry of an oblique and eccentric truncated cone. It was specifically designed to capture winter light and direct it into the living room. Thus, the oculus creates a dynamic focal point of warmth and luminosity that gradually moves throughout the day, from the dining area to the living room, functioning as a domestic sundial. During the summer, the change in solar angle restricts the light to the terrace, preventing direct radiation incidence and protecting the interior spaces.
The construction employs noble and natural materials, including stone flooring, wooden frames, and natural brass details. The lime mortar, used on the walls, is a living, hygroscopic, and breathable material that helps regulate humidity, enhances internal well-being, and develops a characteristic patina over time, lending authenticity to the work.
The Mediterranean garden, characterized by being low-maintenance and requiring little water consumption, is considered a vital part of the project. It was planned to have a natural and mutable appearance, blending with the surrounding landscape and reinforcing the presence of nearby mountains. Native species form a living composition that reacts to the seasons through their flowering cycles, treating vegetation as another architectural material capable of interacting with the structure through textures, colors, and movement, enriching the house's experience over time.
In summary, Casa Óculo represents a concise manifesto of the contemporary Mediterranean lifestyle: an architecture that is efficient, tactile, and deeply connected to its place, built to interact with the climate, age gracefully, and find its primary constructive elements in light, landscape, and time.
The Casa Elementar project was presented by the design team. This house reinterprets the classic image of a country cottage, transforming it into a modern dwelling where architectural solutions are shaped by daily rituals, a creative approach, and a deep connection with nature.
The architectural bureau YUMI Architekci developed this residence, located in a quiet, wooded area near Warsaw. The plot, surrounded by mature vegetation and a garden, allowed for the creation of a sanctuary from urban hustle while maintaining comfort for year-round living.
