Casa La Paz

By making the external element an integral part of the living space, the house and its garden cease to be two distinct entities and merge into a single, unified element. The fusion of interior and exterior generates a sense of expansiveness in the habitable space of the house.

To realize this idea of a garden/house, the key was to preserve and work with the original essence of the land and its topography, ensuring its identity would be maintained and transferred to the house itself.

There was a subtle preexisting relationship between the land and a dry creek on the south side, where both were merging. The challenge of the project was to integrate the house into the topography of the land without disrupting this preexisting connection between the land and its creek.

It is precisely at this point that the balance between destruction and preservation had to be found.

In this way, the land could continue to express itself and evolve, moving from its relationship with the creek into a new relationship that includes the house—placing the house between those two original elements without trying to tame either the land or the creek.

The Casa La Paz project, by embracing the topography and allowing it to remain, seeks to preserve the feeling that existed when walking the untouched land for the first time. It is designed like a walk through the land and, by extension, through the house.

The house appears as a collection of pavilions, creating multiple corners and, thus, multiple atmospheres. It's a small house, but composed of multiple spaces where people can coexist in the same place without always being aware of each other's presence.

The project encourages living outdoors; therefore, it eliminates the fundamental architectural element of the façade. It proposes a house organized around a large void—without a façade—that does not create an enclosure.

Casa La Paz is a house conceived from its negative space. Let me explain: rather than starting from the design of the built living spaces—the positive space of the house—the project was conceived in reverse, beginning with this void that defines the garden.

This garden space is the crucial element that protects the house and all of its interior spaces, serving as a buffer between the house, the street, and its surroundings.

A sense of well-being envelops each space of the house, which is nestled among tall organ pipe cacti, thick elephant trees, and twisted desert bushes.

By responding in this way to the reality of the land, the conventional idea of what would normally be a living room has been redefined. The entire ground floor, its garden, and every single tree become one large open living area.

There is no longer any distinction between interior and exterior. The garden becomes the living room, kitchen, and dining room in their entirety.