mexico city residence

PROJECT
In the Las Lomas de Chapultepec district of Mexico City, Marmol Radziner is designing a residence, private gallery and garden for an art collector. A sequence of indoor/outdoor rooms allows for an ever-changing experience of landscape and art, nature and culture.

SITE
On the northern edge of the property, a single Peruvian pepper tree dominates the otherwise empty parcel of land. The flat site reads
like a courtyard.

DESIGN
The entire property is conceived as a heavy, stone cube with large punctures of air and glass. Exterior rooms expand interior spaces with carpets of water and green. Painting and sculpture are pinned to extended planes of board formed concrete, stone, water and foliage. Afternoon sun bathes the garden rooms as the massing of the home has been pushed to the north and east edges of the site.

Surrounded by a courtyard, the pepper tree marks the centre of the residence. On either side of the tree, two parallel glass bridges link the public and private wings of the home. Whereas the west wing is home to the private residence, the east wing contains a formal dining room and great room on the ground floor and a library and suite of guest rooms above. At the entrance to the east wing, a grand, circular staircase leads to a double-height exhibition space and screening room below ground.

While the experience of art in the home is primarily visual, the garden is designed to awaken all five senses. Waterfalls, tropical trees, succulents and scented flowers hearken back the ancient forests of Chapultepec, once the personal zoo of Montezuma. The entrance faces a long length of pool while one of the two glass bridges runs parallel to this same watery swath. On one side, the dining room opens to the pepper tree courtyard and on the opposite side, to a lawn bounded by a wall of art and tropical trees. Adjoining the great room is an even greater room of green to the west.