Location: Mexico City
Completion date: February 2022
Design collaboration: José Esparza
Photography: Iñaki Viladomat
The project CUPA-422 (a) is located on the top floor of building "A" of Centro Urbano Presidente Alemán (CUPA). With only 60 m2, this apartment unit is one of the 1,080 homes that conform the iconic group of modern buildings known as the first multifamily complex in Mexico, a vertical housing project with multiple amenities and large extensions of green areas completed in 1949. Designed by architect Mario Pani, CUPA incorporates a mixed-use model with shops on the ground floor and housing on the upper floors. In addition to the compactness and stacking of dwellings, the multifamily is innovative due to its duplex typologies, similar to those in the Unité d'Habitation (1952) designed by the architect Le Corbusier. This typology is characterized by developing housing on two levels, promoting the standardization of spaces and the introduction of household appliances, which reflected the social, constructive, and technological changes of its time.
The main idea of this renovation project was to preserve the modern essence of the apartment, seeking to recover its original finishes and integrating similar materials in its design. In this sense, the access door wood, the stairs, and the ironwork of all the windows were returned to their original design.
The apartment is divided into two levels. The access level encapsules the kitchen and dining room, and on the upper level the living room, the master bedroom, and the bathroom. The project began by removing the plaster on the beams and slab to show the texture of the formwork in the concrete, and together with the lighting project, both finishes were left apparent. On the ground floor, off-white terrazzo designed with aggregates in light shades of terracotta was placed on all the floor surface and the kitchen was completely redesigned using wood and stainless steel for the countertop.
For the upper floor we decided to keep the open space that the previous owners obtained by removing the divisions designed for the rooms in the original project. Maintaining this multipurpose space, the renovations focused on the bathroom, closet and replacing the floor with a wooden floor similar to the original that was discovered by removing the paint from the stairs. The bathroom floor and the lower section of the walls were replaced with the same off-white terrazzo used on the ground floor. Additionally, a custom sink was made from the same material with a terracotta-tone metal frame, the same tone used for the shower frames and other iron elements in the project.
As seen in the images, the south wall was conceived as a homogeneous wooden piece that covers the entire wall, integrates a niche with shelves, connects to two large closets, and it incorporates the bedroom closet. Together, the material palette, the neutral tones and the apparent finishes match the simplicity of the original project while offering spatial freedom for the user to configure the space to personal taste.