The Octavia house, designed by the PPAA Peréz Palacios Arquitectos Asociados studio, is located in Colonia Condesa, a neighborhood belonging to the metropolitan area of Mexico City.

With an interesting abstract façade, the building seeks to merge with the urban layout and open up to the city, thus freeing up the ground floor, leaving a space for interaction between users and the neighborhood. These voids are going to be a notable feature in the entire project, allowing an infinite variety of uses and interactions.
The project, designed by the PPAA Peréz Palacios Arquitectos Asociados studio, is characterized by a refined abstraction in which the simplicity of the materials used in the rooms predominates, aspects that are combined with the freshness of the vegetation of the interior patio. The proposal is completed with an interesting play of light and shadow that is accentuated thanks to the incorporation of different textures on floors and walls.

The building is developed in height, leaving the ground floor free, which allows multiple program configurations, with openings that connect the interior with the exterior. The various rooms are developed on the first and second floors, always seeking the entry of natural light and ventilation. At the top, the roof is used as an open space unrelated to the city.
 

Description of project by PPAA Peréz Palacios Arquitectos Asociados

Casa Octavia arises from the intention of transferring the values of the Octavia brand to a lviing space. Values as natural, simple, clear and honest are taken into an architectural space where the user can live a unique accomodation experience in Mexico City.

Located in the Condesa neighborhood, one of the most consolidated and pedestrian – friendly urban areas of the city, the project seeks to respond to this neighborhood condition and join as another project with this urban and social character.

At urban level is conceived as an element that opens up to the city and especially to the pedestrian, leaving the ground floor space free and with public character promoting enconunters between city and the guests.

This public space has multiple configurations and controlled openings, from a extension of the street to a more defined space where they cand host different shcemes, from having a coffe and breakfast to becoming a store or simply a meeting place.

An important part of the project is the empty space that takes the form of a side patio and that visually communicates with the outside.

The built element in the other hand provides with textures in walls and floors emphasizes architecture with emptiness.

The rooms are located in two blocks, one of them in them back part open to the patio and the other in the front part facing to the street with a wooden lattice filter that in besides providing privicy to the sreet, creates a play of light and shade and protects from the sun light. Each room has it's own character. Leaving the largest one at ground floor, which in addition to the beedroom has a space that can be use for social activities or a second bed in the same room. Rooms facing the street have their own balcony facing the interior patio.

The roof was  thought as a public place away for direct contact with the city.

A place with a more controlled relationship with the surrounding, controlled views of the neighborhoof and surrounded by nature.

Like and Octavia , the project has a special care for the details and for specifics need of each users. Using only materials in their purest state, with an exquisite manufacturing they make it not only feel harmonious but at the same time timeless.

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Project team
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Pablo Pérez Palacios, Miguel Vargas, Jorge Quiroga y Hermann Tamayo.
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Area
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340sqm.
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Dates
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2020.
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Location
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Condesa, Mexico City, Mexico.
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Photography
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PPAA. Architecture studio located in Mexico City was founded by Pablo Pérez Palacios in 2018. The practice is driven by an architecture of ideas over the architecture of forms. We conceive architecture as an open medium and message, one that is constantly put to test, by the multiple relations that are in its surroundings. They follow an inclination for nature, where the weather, soil, textures, and other factors—along with the gradients in each factor—create a sensorial atmosphere. They like to think that the way they have of understanding architecture implies that work cannot be done without considering both communal and personal intentions. Therefore, our conception of architecture is based on an understanding of the body and the relationship everyone establishes with their surroundings. Taking this into account, each project seeks to be an extension or support of our experience, personal as well as spatial.

They believe that this can be summed up in the architectural rehearsal, which is the way that modern architecture should be understood. The architectural rehearsal is a vehicle for approaching themselves; the more they rehearse, the more they understand themselves. Furthermore, for architecture to be capable of conveying an idea or intention, it has to speak of the individual, or the sum of individuals, and the way they relate to their environment, on both a sensorial and emotional level.

Pablo Pérez Palacios (Mexico City, 1980) studied in Florence, Italy before he started a bachelor’s degree in Architecture in Mexico City’s Universidad Iberoamericana and Barcelona’s Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (2000-2005). He pursued a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design at Columbia University in New York City. Subsequently, he established DCPP Architects (2007-2017) with Alfonso de la Concha.

In 2018, he started PPAA Pérez Palacios Arquitectos Asociados, an architecture studio located in Mexico City that defines itself as an independent professional practice concentrated on architecture, art, urban, and interior design. PPAA seeks an architecture of ideas over forms.

The studio is constantly participating in several competitions, and its work has been published worldwide. It was shortlisted as finalist in Concurso Papalote Museo del Niño Iztapalapa (Mexico City, 2015); and, with the project Cerrada Reforma 108, it received the silver medal in the category of “Single Family Home” at the A’Design Award 2013 and the silver medal in the category of “Vivienda Unifamiliar,” with the project Cerrada Reforma 108 at the Bienal de Arquitectura de la Ciudad de México 2013. In addition, Pablo has collaborated with contemporary visual artists such as Rita Ponce de León and Abraham Cruzvillegas.
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Published on: February 28, 2021
Cite: "Full and empty in the Condesa neighborhood. Octavia House by Peréz Palacios Arquitectos Asociados" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/full-and-empty-condesa-neighborhood-octavia-house-perez-palacios-arquitectos-asociados> ISSN 1139-6415
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