Mexico City-based architecture firm Atelier Zúñiga López has designed an apartment that represents the history of its clients through light, furniture, nature, and materials. One of the client's requirements was to blend the elements of their lives, a Mexican-Spanish antique collector, with those of her childhood, a Polish woman living in the postwar years. We solved the problem with what we called elementalism. We represented the couple's time by using elemental, natural, almost primary materials and reducing our intervention to a simple, but very detailed, minimalist bar. The woods, like the roots of the family, are divided into two, woods of Mexican origin such as oak for the furniture and imported Austrian oak for the floors that make up a large part of the apartment. We seek contrast by using an annealed natural partition in the heart of the apartment, perfectly modulated so that there are no cuts and no whitewash, an esthetic that recalls her childhood in Poland. In Poland, it is common that the doors are imposing and when entering a wooden gap is a piece of furniture on which to place the shoes of residents and guests. One of the gardens was designed in collaboration with her. In Poland, wood plays a mythical role. We aged it in rain and sun for three months to show that wear is something natural, real and inevitable. We see wear and tear as something elemental in life. We believe in the synchronicity of cultures, materials and intentions, so we decided to create a contrast with the other garden. It is darker to absorb the light and designed with curbs cut into 6 cm wide strips for the floor and technological stone for the table and barbecue furniture. In this case, the elemental is reflected in the almost monochrome nature of the materials. One of our priorities was to work with neutral materials on the second floor so that the antique collection can coexist in the most natural way. The logic of the word time is important to us because it is the fourth dimension of space. The context of what we present refers to the aging of the wood, its history in the past and the future time of construction.
2019
2020
Landscape: Hugo Sánchez
Kitchen: Tua Casa
Kitchen Equipment: Miele
Grill: Esterno
Stones: Grupo Arca
Stave Wood: Weitzer Parkett
Technological Stone: Laminam
Textiles: Artell, Telas de Pani
Luminaire: Luce Plan, Vibia, Auro Lighting
Irrigation: NPB
Audio and Video: Lumtec
Chair Zapata: Anuar Portugal
Ulises Omar Zúñiga
María Graciela López
Samuel Torres
Aurora Rojas
Oscar Ramírez
Andrea López
