The casa pR34 is situated on the rooftop of a existing house. The project involved the gutting and rethinking of the existing late 60s house and the independent structure for the owners daughter.

The client sought to redesign and extend a house built in Tecamachalco (Mexico) in the late 1960s. Inspired by its layout, the client acquired the house and proceeded to re-design it in order to make the dwelling neater and roomier; at a later stage he decided to convert part of the house as a separate apartment for his daughter. The building has two separate entrances, and the new extension is accessed via a spiral staircase.

Reminding us of a ballet movement by two moving bodies, the sensual shape that changes direction at every bend was inspired by the ballerina who used to live in the house. The apartment is divided in two intermediate levels, public and private. The first intermediate level – the access – includes a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a modest bathroom and a goods lift from the entrance. The next intermediate level down includes a TV room, a master bedroom with an en-suite, and a dressing room. The flat roof which contains the new part has a large balcony, and the domes from the original house have been turned into luminous acrylic benches.

Completed to a very high standard of Mexican craftsmanship, the structure consists of 6-inch rolled IPEs. The cover comprises carefully tin-plated 5-mm steel plates, reminiscent of a ship or a spacecraft. Beneath these 5-mm steel plates are two 1-1/2” layers of mineral wool for sound and thermal insulation. Finally, the interior has been covered with 9-mm oriented-strand board (OSB) (coarse-chip, three-ply) finished in faded-white resin.

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