Architects: Di Frenna Arquitectos
Area: 518 m²
Year: 2018
Photographs: Onnis Luque
Suppliers: Hunter Douglas, Interceramic, VALVO, Cemex, Helvex
Casa Nicté-Ha was born from creating a set of volumes made up of a concrete matched to the tone of the earth in the area and mixing it with the same buried stone of itself, which they call “Piedra de potrero”.
It is a project in which the kitchen functions as the heart of the house, integrating it with the rest of the spaces in a double-height in order to make it a very familiar and interactive house.
The warm climate of the city of Colima led us to design it with many sets of levels and heights with integrated interior-exterior spaces.
General use was made of five materials: apparent beige concrete, local stone, steel beams, and wood, giving this naturalness to the house, achieving with these materials thermal insulation in all the walls for the warm climate of the City of Colima.
Each space is a block of the house, so its shape is created through the play of volumes of these, making an arrangement in which preference was given to the incredible views that this house enjoys, which are: a small Lake and the Colima volcano.
With this same game, the spaces were oriented to our convenience, taking advantage of the dominant airs and the sunlight.
At all times it is sought that the warmth of the wood has a great presence as a contrast to the materiality of the rest, creating a house with most of the finishes in a very handmade way. Very rough placement of the “paddock stone”, the forms of “lined with very fine strips” for the casting of the beige concrete walls and the carpentry with wood from the area to have a good performance. Breaking this with very exact materials on the outside with the steel beams and on the inside with kitchen cabinets.
The kitchen formed by a huge monolith of granite “cyanitus” and functioning as a central axis is integrated with the suspended staircase, bridges, integrated double-height spaces, corridors, living room, and outside with the terrace and pool creating a unique and this point being the surprise of Casa Nicté-Ha of any of the areas that are traveled.
On the first floor is the entire social area, leaving the entire second level for the private area, the bedrooms.
Nicté-ha comes from the Mayan, mythical origin of an aquatic plant with floating leaves and beautiful white flowers of delicate perfume, giving this name to the house because of its proximity and height to the lake on its back facade and its floating overhang on the front facade.