Agave House

Nicolas Million

• Architects

The town of Tequila, Jalisco is surrounded by agave landscapes and is the center of the tequila industry. As one of Mexico’s most emblematic town, it is also a thriving tourist destination where its residences are losing their identity due to a "modern" concept of architecture. This has led to unplanned growth of the city with unregulated industrialized and high energy consumption materials.

photo_credit Nicolas Million — Nicolas Million

The "Agave House" proposes the use of tequila industry based materials in its construction elements such as walls, finishes, accessories, furniture, doors, lighting, floors, and stained glass.

With this in mind, this proposal made it possible to preserve a Mexican identity as well as elements that go along with the local identity through the use of earth, the characteristic colors, inclined roofs, and tiles.

The house also considered personal needs of Toño (a local Jimador) such as: the orientation of the sun, climate, topography, and local soil, resulting in a house with bioclimatic criteria, using cross ventilation, natural lighting, comfort, and climate.

During the construction period, the use of these materials and construction systems rose interest among locals, students, and others. This served as a training ground, providing an opportunity to expand construction knowledge.

A house was also achieved with the use of eco-technologies such as:

· Dry toilet: It’s a toilet that doesn’t use water, doesn’t pollute, doesn’t generate waste, doesn’t generate odors or flies, and results in human compost.

· Wood stove and oven: Firewood is a little used natural resource nowadays. This eco-technology prevents us from wasting natural gas, which is a hydrocarbon that took billions of years to form in the subsoil and when burned is released into the atmosphere quickly and easily.