Matamoros

Matamoros is a recovery and rehabilitation project that is designed with the purpose of generating multi-family housing in the Historic Center of the City of Oaxaca. The project, in collaboration with INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History), makes the necessary adjustments respecting the required guidelines and principles.

The existing property was in very poor condition, furthermore, the property was only part of a house that was divided between members of the former owning family. Consequently, the result was a property with complicated characteristics to be able to integrate 11 apartments. The design was carried out on a plot of land 9.70m wide by 46.50m long where half had the opening of a listed historical building that had to be respected, recovered and rehabilitated. We also had two specimens of African tulips in the middle of the plot. And on the other hand, the regulations of the historic center only allow reaching a height of 7.20m.

The project is based on the concern of obtaining a relationship between the preexistence and the architectural intervention of the new proposal. Historical elements are recovered to extend their useful life and in parallel structural elements are created to generate tectonics with the new volumes.

Ancestral techniques are used such as the use of clay stuccos and cactus silt, the green quarry characteristic of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca and local woods to obtain visual warmth. On the other hand, the intervention is generated through the use of pigmented concrete, referring to the earthy tones characteristic of the area and always considering the issue of long-term maintenance.

Our ideas when designing always consider the problems of today's world, not only at a global level but also at a regional level. That is why the project has rainwater collection systems, use and care of ventilation, sunlight and the advantage of taking advantage of the 1 m thick adobe walls in the ground floor apartments to obtain comfortable spaces that adapt perfectly to the different seasons of the year.

Finally, the project is developed in a playful way, from the outside to the inside, where the facade goes unnoticed and the access invites you to discover the project little by little, walking through the building and going down the counter-sloping levels it has.

Matamoros is a building that demonstrates that projects can be developed that integrate into the city based on the guidelines required by the authorities, that take up the historical construction elements and systems of Oaxaca and that also generate density.