Mexico-based Garduño Arquitectos recently has completed the Alpes House in Lomas de Chapultepec, Mexico.

We decided to use concrete as our main language, dialoguing with the natural context as well as the different spatial, functional and mood necessities. The color of the concrete was made to match a sample of “tepetate” (a brittle volcanic rock), a material naturally found in this terrain. The match was perfect and the concrete blends in a natural and warm way with its surroundings while providing the advantage of its structural qualities needed to develop the conceptual idea into a real space.

Garduño Arquitectos

Alpes House, image courtesy Garduño Arquitectos

+ Project description by Garduño Arquitectos

When a long time friend of mine, an architect turned artist, asked me to do this job, I jumped right in at the opportunity. I was very familiar with her work and knew her perception and vision would be an important part of the process. I was given complete creative freedom by her and this proved to be both challenging and intimately rewarding.

This couple, with three children, wanted a place to reflect the intensity of a family that lives, loves and makes art. The house had to reflect their passions clearly through space, connectivity and the use of materials.

Alpes House, image courtesy Garduño Arquitectos

Alpes House, image courtesy Garduño Arquitectos

We decided to use concrete as our main language, dialoguing with the natural context as well as the different spatial, functional and mood necessities. The color of the concrete was made to match a sample of “tepetate” (a brittle volcanic rock), a material naturally found in this terrain. The match was perfect and the concrete blends in a natural and warm way with its surroundings while providing the advantage of its structural qualities needed to develop the conceptual idea into a real space.

Alpes House, image courtesy Garduño Arquitectos

For choosing the other materials we opted to use as few as possible, resulting in one type of wood and one type of stone. The idea was to let the materials and space work themselves up and around, unfolding into their own unique form. The final result is made up of areas that interact with each other, preserving their own proportions given their use and importance on the program. Transparency was obtained throughout the house with the use of glass panels, enjoying green views from every angle integrating them intimately with the inner space.

The base level was used to obtain the height needed to be able to free the views from the house to the adjacent park, security, all important issues for this family, were also achieved through raising the house, as well as making room for parking their cars.

Alpes House, image courtesy Garduño Arquitectos

The lower level occupies most of the program; foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen, pool and the children’s bedrooms are all connected here.

In the upper floor a studio, with an independent entrance from the street and intimately communicated with the master bedroom was designed to be able to sleep and work on the same area but giving each independence from one another

There is a service room ingeniously embedded into the program between the kitchen and the master bedroom, not seen in any facade but with its own private terrace and natural light.

Our answer to our client's need was architecture that feels unique, and responds functionally and esthetically to the means intended.

+ Project credits / data

Project: Alpes House
Chief Architect: Juan Garduño AIA
Design Office: Garduño Arquitectos | Not Only Architects | http://www.notonlyarchitects.com/
Design Team: Ximena Orozco, Ricardo Guzmán, Athos Sajid
General Contractor: Alen Construcciones
Photography: Paul Czitrom
Location: Lomas de Chapultepec, Mexico City, Mexico
Typology:  Residential | House
Size: 8,073 square feet
Design Period: 2010
Completion Period: 2010
Main materials: concrete, wood, stone.

+ All images courtesy Garduño Arquitectos

German landscape architecture studio TOPOTEK 1 has designed the Sports Facility Heerenschürli, it is one of the largest sport facility in Zurich, Switzerland.

+ Project description by TOPOTEK 1

The Heerenschürli sports facility, one of the largest in Zurich, is located between a nature reserve, a highway crossing, residential housing and large-scale industrial buildings. It will be thoroughly restructured to cater to the changing and expanding demands of sports and leisure activities. A compact, extremely popular sporting world with twelve football fields and one for baseball are integrated with three buildings: an ice-rink, a locker-room building and a workshop.

The playing fields are all surrounded by high fences, giving the sports arena its architectural status and urban poignancy. The fences form diverse spatial sequences mediated along a simple path layout. The determinant connecting function of the orthogonal path axes is interwoven with the sensuality of sport and connected with the spatial and functional core of the complex over a series of rows of trees, avenues and accent-setting groves. The overlapping transparency of the fences creates a unique visual dynamism which is further amplified by the materials used in their construction: the two-ply, wire-mesh walls in various green tones produce a moiré effect which makes the overlapping of the various spatial layers a part of the mise-en-scene of the relationship between athletes and spectators.

Sports Facility Heerenschürli, image courtesy TOPOTEK 1 | Photo © Hanns Joosten

Sports Facility Heerenschürli, image courtesy TOPOTEK 1 | Photo © Hanns Joosten

Sports Facility Heerenschürli, image courtesy TOPOTEK 1 | Photo © Hanns Joosten

Sports Facility Heerenschürli, image courtesy TOPOTEK 1 | Photo © Hanns Joosten

Sports Facility Heerenschürli, image courtesy TOPOTEK 1 | Photo © Hanns Joosten

Sports Facility Heerenschürli, image courtesy TOPOTEK 1 | Photo © Hanns Joosten

+ Project credits / data

Project: Sports Facility Heerenschürli, Zurich
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Client: GrünStadt Zürich
Architecture: Dürig Architekten AG
Landscape: TOPOTEK 1 | http://topotek1.de/
Planning: 2005 – 2008
Completion: 2010
Size: 9,7 ha
Photography: © Hanns Joosten

+ OFFICE PROFILE

The task central to our office is the design of urban open spaces. Based on a critical understanding of immanent realities, the search for conceptual approaches leads us to decided statements concerning the urban context.

Throughout design, planning, and construction we offer solutions for independent new parks, squares, sports-grounds, courtyards and gardens, whose designs answer to contemporary requirements for variability, communication and sensuality. The manifold experiences through a broad spectrum of German and international projects meanwhile capacitate an efficient realization, finely tuned to respective ecessities.

BACKGROUND; TOPOTEK 1 is a landscape architecture studio that specializes in the design and construction of unique urban open spaces. Founded by Martin Rein-Cano in 1996, the studio's roster of German and international projects has ranged in scale from the master plan to the private garden. Each project strives to respond to site conditions and programmatic necessities with a compelling concept, high quality of design and efficient implementation.

HOW WE WORK; In the early stages of a project, the design teams search for conceptual approaches based on a critical understanding of the task. With digital drawing and physical models we test, revise, and communicate the initial design intent.

TOPOTEK 1 often collaborates with other creative consultants such as artists, lighting designers, and video programmers, and to enrich the experiential potential of a project. In parallel, we work closely with technical consultants such as civil and traffic engineers early in the design process to integrate site solutions with design innovation consistently throughout the project.

All construction drawings are done in-house to the highest professional and environmental standards. As a project is transferred from the design team to the construction team, the project leader for design continues oversight of drawings, specifications and design revisions. This link ensures that the original conceptual intent stays intact throughout implementation.

+ PARTNERS

Image courtesy TOPOTEK 1

Martin Rein-Cano was born in Buenos Aires in 1967. He studied art history at Frankfurt University and landscape architecture at the Technical Universities of Hannover and Karlsruhe. He trained in the office of Peter Walker and Martha Schwartz in San Francisco, and has worked with the office of Gabi Kiefer in Berlin. In 1996, the TOPOTEK 1 office was founded.

Martin Rein-Cano has taught as a guest professor in Europe and North America. He has lectured internationally at a variety of universities and cultural institutions, and often serves as a member of design competition juries.

Lorenz Dexler was born in Darmstadt in 1968. He studied landscape architecture at Hannover Technical University. After working at the office of Prof. Günther Nagel, Hannover and Wehberg and at Eppinger Schmittke in Hamburg, he began his collaboration with TOPOTEK 1 in 1996. In 1999, Dexler became a managing partner at the studio. He has lectured at a diversity of schools and institutions, and frequently serves on international design juries.

+ All images courtesy TOPOTEK 1 | Photo © Hanns Joosten