Home that offers panoramic views and the reflection of the sky on the lake as soon as you pass its threshold

Architects: Luis Daniel Salazar Machado
Location: Tapalpa, Jalisco, Mexico
Year: 2014
Area: 9.149 ft²/ 850 m²
Photo courtesy: Eduardo Sendra Dueñas
Description:

“Tapalpa, proclaimed pueblo mágico (magic town) of Jalisco, is located 118 km away from Guadalajara, and it’s set 2070 meters above sea level, where the natural, architectonic and cultural riches endow with magic to the recreational and resting visits.

A reservoir gently covers the Rancho Viejo living complex where La Casona is settled, the therm was adopted in Spain, and it designates the stately homes of the mountains. The project was developed under the philosophical organic architecture grounds, where design, material, and construction methods are a reinterpretation of those rooted culturally to the zone.

Bank stone, volcanic stone, adobe, pinewood, concrete and roof tile are the regent materials in the construction, the expertise of the local builders are the very soul of walls and ceilings. We inhabited the house before we built it, we tried to evoke the childhood home where imagination and each and every memory find its rightful place.

The entrance opens through a stone volume, a compression atmosphere and shelter receives the visitor, just to be surrounded by light, panoramic views and the reflection of the sky on the lake as soon as you pass the threshold.

La Casona splits its functions on three big blocks, the main block, which corresponds to the shared services and amenities as the living room, dining room, kitchen, bar, game room and jacuzzi, and two side blocks with two bungalows each.

The main hall, lets the sunlight in and articulates all the spaces and activities contained within this block. A stone block opened to nature. On each side there are inserted stone blocks that keep inside the most intimate function of La Casona, a place for sleep and dreaming.

The Lake, the landmark of La Casona, it’s an artificial 750 m2 reservoir on which the circular plant open terrace seems to float, a simple space that grants all the drama to the water flow.

La Casona conciliates the traditional methods and materials with the contemporary life demands, it’s the mediator between what building for a human being, and building in communion with the environment was, is and could be.”