Una Casa Brutalista Enterrada En Una Colina - OPEN PLAN Ep 10 - House Tour

I first got involved with Villa Ito from the beginning. I helped find the land, and then once we found the land, it just kind of organically happened from there. The design of the building, the placement of the building, the orientation of the building, was all dictated on how it fit within the valley where it was placed. The owner wanted a unique house that Central Mexico and this area in San Miguel had not seen before. The first ideas that came to mind for Villa Ito were a brutalist hacienda, and as the project developed, it became more brutalist and less hacienda. When you think of a hacienda, you think of a home. When you think of brutalism, you don't think of a home. So the goal was, could we merge these two designs to make brutalism livable with these traditional Mexican elements that the owner had found on his travels throughout Mexico for the last 10 years? The idea was privacy. It was very important to the homeowner to have privacy and security. So when you first come up to the house, all you see is walls, almost prison-like. That was intentional, was to give it this mystery. And then it takes you on a wandering path to the house. The idea for doing such a low front door is to have this smaller, almost regular-sized door that you then would go through, and then it would open up. And that did two things. It, again, led to that mystery, but it also made that new space that you walked into even more grand. The volumes even seemed bigger because you went from this low space into this completely wide open space. It's a very zen, Japanese-style courtyard. The idea was to keep it very clean and minimal. And then you come to another door that is a giant hacienda door. And in fact, the entire house and the main sala was built around that door. That door was actually purchased well in advance of even the home being conceived. And so when you have this massive front door, slightly imperfect against this very smooth concrete wall, it sets it off and just makes it this piece that's even more important. You come through the large hacienda doors, and you're in the main sala. And the main sala is completely framed around the hill in the background. There's another gate in the back along the back wall that leads out into the land. But the main sala is an entertaining space. You've got your dining space. You've got your open kitchen. You've got your small living area in front of the fireplace. Around the back side of the fireplace, you have the library area. The house just organically was built. There was the master plan for the main sala, but after that, it was all by feel. What felt right, what ceiling height was right, what materials felt right. And then as we were doing the covering for the back terrace, we wanted to let some natural light in. And we also wanted to bring in some softer elements and some landscaping elements. So we basically just stopped building. And as we stopped building, we're like, how is this going to look? And so we've just left it open. I personally think it's become one of the best features of the entire house. After we left it open, it was like, okay, now what's going to fit perfectly here? So the owner found this very sculptural tree that then the rest of the space was designed around this tree. So you'll see a built-in banquette seating area with an outdoor dining table, the large sliding glass doors open out onto that area from the library. So it was important to the owner to have this area where he could relax inside, but then also go outside, have a cup of coffee, have a drink in the afternoon, have dinner or have lunch all around this tree and this open-to-the-sky type of outdoor area. The vegetation in the back is very minimal, so you'll see some grasses, but the main thing you see in the back is the olive trees, and these are old, 80-year-old olive trees. They don't need a lot of water, which is great for this area. It perfectly finished off the back of the house. The house told us what to do. The spaces actually told us how they wanted it to be. So we designed the main sala, that felt right, and the bedroom area, we adjusted that size 2 or 3 times, all of it being very unplanned, to be honest. I am meticulous when it comes to the things I've designed in the past. I want everything to be perfect, but this house didn't want to be perfect. This house wanted to be organic, it wanted to be a living organism. As you will see when you come in, the colors change, the concrete colors change. There's a little shifting and a little cracking in it. To quote Rick Rubin, the famous music producer, if there's 5 mistakes, it's probably not finished. If there's 8 mistakes, it probably is. And to me, that's what Villa Ito is, this perfectly imperfect villa. As we go upstairs, you'll see the unique staircase that's built into, that's supported with the sidewall. Most people would not even know that the design was wrong, but it is a very unique staircase. The landing was kind of built around this beautiful piece of art from Masala Diaz. She's a Merida-based artist. So you'll come to another staircase that takes you to the main master bedroom. The owner's idea was to have this small balcony where they could actually see their entire property, and it just provides a perfect view for the sunrise. Villa Ito means to me, letting go of control. Let the world and let spaces and let things tell you where they are supposed to be. And this home taught me so many lessons, and that to me is priceless.