The project consists on a small group of three houses located in a suburban area of Monterrey, at the municipality of San Pedro Garza Garcia, built on plots of approximately 150m2 of land and with a single front view to the street. The built area of each house is of approximately 280 m2 with slight variations between them.
Each house is divided in three levels with a main concept of two spatial cores. The first one, which is bigger, is reflected in the principal centre of the houses by volumes which stand out supported by a steel beam and organized successively in relation to the urban façade of the project, filling most of the plot’s length with the exception of the ground floor. This spatial core contains the main spaces of the houses, as well as the services for the bedrooms, kitchen, and laundry room.
The second core (smaller than the first one) corresponds to the circulations of the houses (hallways and stairs), storage closets, general services, and service bedroom in the ground floor, which is independent to each house. This utilitarian part serves as a containment space between each house.
This way, the interior areas are divided in each house leaving the ground floor for the public and social use: kitchen, dining and living room, and a patio; which occupies two-thirds of the back area of the plot, located at the back of the parking area.
At the second floor, the main bedroom was placed at the front of the plot, and the living room at the back, both of them separated by services and the laundry room. This service’s core as well as the circulations is repeated in the third floor in which the secondary bedrooms are located.
Even though the plots are small the houses offer open spaces that are visually connected between them; and their limits with full-height openings, contributing to the natural illumination and ventilation in most of the spaces.
Despite the use of the same scheme in the complex, each house conserves a certain autonomy regarding space, materiality, and architectural language, generating a unique identity in the complex. Materials were selected in white, gray and black tones to be used in most of the surfaces, with details in wood, iron, and black metal.
This small housing complex is a sequence of abstract boxes that break down according to the material used to their construction or to construct their coating in white brick, corrugated black sheet, or white metallic louvers.
