Amezcua

Photocatalytic Cave

Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro

PHOTOCATALYTIC CAVE

Amezcua

ARCHITECTS
Amezcua

LOCATION
Ciudad De México, Mexico

CATEGORY
Houses, Showroom, Extension

AREA
70 m²

YEAR
2018

PHOTOGRAPHS
Jaime Navarro

MANUFACTURING, THERMOFORMING AND INSTALLATION
Embodied

MANUFACTURERS
AutoDesk, Listone Giordano, Porcelanosa Grupo, Adobe, Comex, Light Moxion,
Stylus Audio & Video, Taller Tornel, Teka, Trimble, URREA

EXTERIOR LIGHTNING
Light Moxion

DEVELOPER
MM Desarrollos

INTERIOR LIGHTNING
Luz en Arquitectura

DESIGN TEAM
Gabriela Mosqueda, Aarón Rivera, Rodrigo Lugo, Miguel González, Saraí Cházaro,
Víctor Cruz, María García, Mauricio Miranda, Julio Amezcua.

The Photocatalytic Cave is located 12 meters below a house in the upper part of a hill, to the west of Mexico City, an area where it’s common to find caves created decades ago, to extract sand as a building material.

Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro
Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro

To make use of this natural hollow, the project was carried out by designing and working together with the client, his suppliers and construction team, highlighting Amezcua's design, to achieve a space like no other.Besides its recreational use, this site also intends to promote and generate lifestyle experiences for the real estate clientele of MM.

Several actions were carried out to in order to make this space habitable, enduring, and mutable. 

Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro
Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro

The first was to secure the place structurally, placing metal lintels as in coalmines, supported on columns.

The second was to carve the roofs, gaining height and physically distributing load forces, in addition to properly directing natural water runoffs.

Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro
Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro

Finally, the humidity of the site was substantially reduced, with passive techniques such as natural air circulation and also with active equipment such as air injectors, dehumidifiers and two backlit covers made out of Krion, a thermo-formable material that catalyzes when in contact with natural or artificial light, thus acting as air purifiers and light diffusers.

The project consists of five galleries – one of them isolated. Upon entering, the first thing you see is one of the backlit covers that resemble a calla lily flower in its shape, which due to its dimensions and interference with the ceiling, questions the guest about the space he enters.

Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro
Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro
Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro

This piece completes the entrance hall and distributes it between the kitchen – equipped with what is necessary to serve formal dinners for up to 12 people – and the living room, whose curved armchair was cast following the shape of the wall.

The piece also makes a game of reflections with the closet mirrors, and visually protects the entrance to the toilets, where the focal piece is a washbasin manufactured on-site with marbled concrete, cast with a special formwork that refers to the strata of the cave, by the artist Rodolfo Díaz Cervantes of Taller Tornel.

The gallery that precedes the dining room has, on one side, an intimate place to smoke cigars or have a drink and, on the other, a wine cellar and coffee area.

Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro
Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro
Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro

Finally, the last gallery displays the second backlit cover, which is attached to the ceiling.

In addition to illuminating the dining room table, this piece emulates the effect of an x-ray, exhibiting a series of blocks placed by the owner –carrying each a written intention – following the recommendation of the artist Emilio García Plascencia.

The beauty of this place is in its nature and the reading of time observed in the strata of its walls; in an intervention that softens the space and transforms it into a cave that shows the advances in design, uses and technology that have occurred throughout the thousands of years that human beings have occupied them.

Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro
Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro
Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro


Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro
Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro
Photocatalytic Cave
© Jaime Navarro


Photocatalytic Cave
Plan
Photocatalytic Cave
Plan


Photocatalytic Cave
© Amezcua
Photocatalytic Cave
© Amezcua
Photocatalytic Cave
© Amezcua
Photocatalytic Cave
Sections

Amezcua
T +55 68 420 861
Amezcua
Palmas 555, Int 803, Lomas de Chapulepec, CDMX, Mexico