Tulum, QuintanaRoo – Mexico

The two corner lots are located in a residential area of ​​new urbanization between the town of Tulum and the beach. The program calls for the construction of two apartment buildings for rent, one on each plot, with the communal areas in the centre, joining both properties. There is pedestrian access in the centre, with a single checkpoint, with toilet and storage for staff, with surface parking in each of the two corners. The access corridor runs parallel to the street, the pool’s water plane separates it from the rest of the common area, allowing it to be included visually with the solarium and pergola, with bar and kitchenette.

The apartment buildings are symmetrical, have ground floor plus two levels and roof, with one house per floor. The structure is of load-bearing walls with some metallic point element. The staircase is designed in a corner as a sculptural element that gives plasticity to the resulting rigid volumes. On the ground floor and first floors the kitchen is located in a wooden lined cube, as if it was a piece of furniture, in the centre of the floor, shaping the spaces: living room and dining room and master bedroom giving the terrace run on the garden and common areas and the two suites behind. The terrace is conceived as an extension of the interior living space and the bedroom, with a bathtub for the enjoyment of its occupants. On the third level, there is a service bedroom with bathroom, laundry area and an apartment with a smaller program with private access to the deck, with a single bedroom and a completely open layout.
The stone masonry perimeter wall of the region in contrast to the white polished concrete of the finish of the walls of the buildings, the floor of the common areas and the interior of the houses is polished concrete with different pigmentation, white interior walls and some elements of the furniture, such as beds, countertops in bathrooms and cabinets, with the typical finishing of the region known as “chukum”, a stucco prepared with the resin of the bark of the homonymous tree. The carpentries are made of black aluminium and the glass railings. The section of the terraces corresponding to the bedrooms is covered in façade with a cedar wood lattice, to give privacy, which in turn rotates, to become the pergola that gives shade to the common area and bar, to return to go up and cover the terraces of the symmetrical building.