La Antena
Mexico City, Mexico
1999-2000
1999-2000
7,962 sq m
7,620 sq m
Lomas de Moctezuma A.C.
Socio (Alejandro Villarreal), Colaboradores (Diseño Arkitech SA de CV)
Alejandro Villarreal
La Antena is located in a 7,962.00 sq m site, in the Iztapalapa district of Mexico CIty. The project is a social housing development consisting of 100 departments, setup in 10 towers, with 5 levels each. Each tower has 10 apartments of 72 m2.
The buildings were grouped so that each and every one of the apartments were opened to the south and closed as possible to the north, generating not only adequate orientation, but also an ingredient for optimal privacy.
The building structure is determined through a system of perimeter load-bearing walls, to be able release structurally the inner space. The interior walls are made of drywall, thus allowing the internal distribution to be modified, according to the changing needs of each family.
We generated 3 different apartment layouts, which vary according to the layout of the internal flown patio. All apartments have 3 bedrooms, kitchen, dining room and subdivided bathroom, which is broken into 3 subspaces (wc, shower and toilet), to be used by three different people at once.
In order to eliminate the character of “repetition” that normally accompanies such kind of projects, we intended to build a spirit of “customization” for each apartment, creating 4 different structural “skins”, where each one is made up of a different type of concrete block, which provides a final outer finish from the time of placement, eliminating all types of maintenance. Each of the “skins” is positioned at random in each tower, thus creating a housing development rich in diversity and material expression.
