The path we travel everyday as architects is uncertain and complicated in many aspects, and at the same time it’s magical and gratifying, a way of living. Our work manifests our thinking and our searches, becoming in these few years a resistance to circumstances. We want to continue growing, exploring, learning, risking and resisting this path.
Through our experience we identify how valuable it is to know better the people we design for, if possible, we try to get intimate with them. We understand this as a vital verb to realize and relate to our environment and those around us, which we try to reflect in our architectural narrative: intimacy has become a starting point that allows us to identify important aspects, particularities and wishes of people, their perspective and their vision.
Melón House represents an approach to the intimate wishes of its inhabitants. Its materialization is the sample of a custom-designed and built space, a very personal proposal and at the same time, integrated in harmony with its community, like the new gear of a mechanism. Located into a quiet area in Morelia city, the project has its roots in the idea of giving a sense of belonging for a marriage with their community, where the daily activities, uses and inhabitants of the neighborhood are an important factor to create a work that dialogues with all these scenarios.
Both, the constructive process and technical follow-up stages are certainly no less valuable. On the contrary, the preliminary perceptions and expectations of what was built in that place, generated an involuntary but valuable participation and integration of the community and passers-by on Melón street for several months, until they finally realized that the final narrative was the natural and honest expression of their exposed materials, with no additional layers or coatings: timeless and consistent like the primary tools and construction techniques.
The program was developed according to the needs and hobbies of the couple, as well as the relationship of the project with the immediate environment. Outside, the project is isolated on ground floor to give privacy to the living spaces, while on upper level, a large window allows the entrance of daylight in the studio, which is opened to the exterior and dialogues with its urban context -where small windows predominate-. Inside, an interior patio protects the private spaces, creating an interesting play of light and shadows through checkered windows and blacksmiths.
Beyond a private space, Melón House is understood as a living-studio, giving a new meaning to the living machine. Through the use of concrete, steel glass and wood, a sober and transparent dynamic is generated, allowing to experiment and design modulated spaces, open to possibilities of various natures.
