Casa Colomos
Casa Colomos is a minimalist residence located in Guadalajara, Mexico, designed by V Taller. The house occupies a rare threshold condition – a compact urban lot that directly abuts Bosque Los Colomos, one of the city’s most substantial natural reserves. This adjacency to protected forest while remaining embedded in consolidated urban fabric creates a design tension that the architects resolve through spatial restraint and environmental calibration rather than visual drama.
The architectural response draws explicitly from contemporary Japanese principles, a framework evident not in surface aesthetics but in organizational logic. The program distributes across two levels with social and service functions grounding the composition while private spaces withdraw to the upper floor. A double-height volume forms the project’s spatial anchor – a continuous vertical space that establishes visual connection between interior occupation and forest canopy through deliberately scaled apertures. This relationship extends through interior planters that bring vegetation inside the thermal envelope and through terraces and balconies oriented to specific views rather than generic openness.
Structurally, the combination of load-bearing walls and steel elements permits spans that support spatial fluidity without excessive material expression. The choice reflects pragmatic response to site conditions identified through soil studies, allowing efficient foundations while minimizing disturbance to existing root systems and vegetation. The structural strategy prioritizes economy of means – doing more with less through precise calibration of load paths and material placement.
Material selection follows the same restrained logic. Exposed concrete provides thermal mass and eliminates finish layers, natural wood offers warmth in interior applications and carpentry, and local stone mediates between exterior and interior in transitional zones. Each material was chosen for performance across multiple criteria – durability, thermal behavior, maintenance requirements, and aging characteristics. The palette resists novelty in favor of materials whose performance improves or stabilizes over time rather than degrading.
The post Casa Colomos appeared first on Leibal.