Musical Box: The Well-Tempered House and the Hollowed Column 

by Daniel Quesada Lombo (MArch ’17)

The project reconfigures the horizontal patio house into a vertical organization. This allows the upper volume to act like a hat, providing shade during the hot hours of the day and maintaining the heat for the cold nights. The composition of the columns makes the building float visually. Simultaneously, their orientation, materiality and hollowness, provide clean air and mediate temperature changes. To provide clean air through buoyancy and a simple architectural organization is an unforeseen possibility that could improve the health of a city. Through the synthesis of these visible and invisible qualities the experience of dwelling is fundamentally transformed.

Site: Mexico City

Altitude: 2,200 m

Program: House, Music Studio & Public Patio