Mexican architecture firm Manuel Cervantes Estudio has designed a residence with a half-buried north and south-facing platform to grasp the mesmerizing view from its surrounding. 

Giving the importance to natural surrounding, the architects placed the windows of most of the spaces towards the view.

Named Hill House, the house is located in a forest on one of the slopes of a Mexican ravine. As the tam explained, one of the first goals of design is the use of view offered by the site and the other is to use the orientation of the emplacement to provide better weather conditions against cold weather in part of the year.

By creating a half-buried vehicular patio, visitors are accessed the house via this patio in a body flanked by two open courtyards that ensure the lighting of several of the spaces of the house.

In this access, there is a circulation that leads to social area formed by living room, dining room and bar, with an open terrace that can be used on warm days offered by the region. 

There is also a communication to the kitchen and service room. In the same corridor is an indoor pool opening by a large window to an open terrace. 

The house also consists of a game room, a family room, master bedroom with a painting studio, and access to a second communication, which leads to four additional bedrooms. 

The project was conceived as an elongated structure, so frank view is provided to the forest surrounding the house from all living spaces.

In the construction, the office used a mixed structure of masonry walls, and metal and wood apparent beams, beside wood, other materials from the region are applied, such as stone floors and some walls, rustic painted and exposed concrete walls under the principle that governs the studio to offer a sense of integration with nature by the forms, respect for the site and the application of finishes and a similar color range region.

The landscape project plays a key role in this house, generating a series of terraces by stone walls, which were designed to facilitate circuits tour on the site, all flanked by dry rivers, which allow conduct rainwater when occurs, reducing the speed, facilitating their infiltration and reducing erosion that may be caused by the unevenness of the land.

The house integrates concepts of sustainability through rainwater harvesting and use on the site.

All images © Rafael Gamo

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