Degrees Project: Redefining the Relationship Between Interior Spaces, Exterior, and Natural Terrain

Degrees Project: A Unique Visual and Architectural Experience

Overview

The Degrees Project is an architectural experience that combines visual and engineering innovation. This design doubles the usual 360-degree field of view, allowing users a unique interaction with their surrounding spaces.

Design Concept

The project’s design stems from a central courtyard, highlighting the relationship between the interior and exterior worlds. This approach reflects how the surrounding environment influences the residents’ experience, making every corner of the space pivotal to daily interaction.

Daytime and Nighttime Viewing Mechanism

During the day, the design opens up to diverse natural scenes, including a mountain and a volcano, with windows allowing full visibility of the project’s surroundings. At night, the focus shifts inward toward the circular courtyard, creating an intimate and enclosed atmosphere, emphasizing the home as a multi-layered space within a single structure.

Artistic and Engineering Innovation

The project embodies the spirit of innovation by merging form and function. It resembles a sundial that records the passage of time, relying on the movement of light and shadow to enhance the daily experience of the space.

Project Layout: Three Integrated Units

Architectural Units

The Degrees Project consists of three distinct units:

1. Main Circular House: Serves as the central heart of the design, accommodating the core daily activities.
2. Separate Studio or Guest Room: Offers complete privacy for visitors or work purposes, while maintaining visual connection with the central courtyard.
3. Rectangular Unit: Features an internal courtyard housing additional bedrooms, storage spaces, and various service facilities.

Purpose of the Division

The division of units reflects consideration of the prominent natural terrain while preserving existing vegetation, enhancing the project’s environmental sustainability. The design also allows for space distribution that meets the needs of two families, with dedicated areas for extended relatives and guests, thereby increasing the home’s long-term usability and flexibility.

Interior Planning: A Balance Between Openness and Privacy

Spatial Layout

The house extends over two levels, with the ground floor encompassing the main spaces, while the upper floor offers an open terrace providing panoramic views of the surroundings. The circular layout includes rectangular bedrooms, bathrooms, and closets, in addition to a practical kitchen that seamlessly connects daily functions.

Interaction with the Exterior Space

Curved walls along the corridors extend as terraces toward the inner courtyard or as small gardens facing outward. This design creates a sense of fluidity between interior and exterior spaces while maintaining visual harmony with the natural environment.

Design Flexibility and Environmental Connectivity

The project employs various flexible openings, such as:

• Privacy screens
• Large foldable windows
• Frames for viewing the external landscape

These solutions allow interior spaces to be easily adapted according to daily needs, while maintaining a continuous connection with the surrounding environment, reflecting a carefully considered balance between privacy and openness.

Location and Geography: Seclusion in the Heart of Nature

Spatial Context

The house is situated in a secluded valley approximately three hours from Mexico City, providing a high level of privacy and isolation while allowing full openness to the surrounding natural scenery.

Adaptation to Climatic Conditions

The project is designed to withstand extreme climatic challenges, with temperatures that can vary by up to 30°C within a single day, and rainfall prevailing for half the year. The house provides necessary protection from these conditions while maintaining continuous visual connection with the external environment.

Environmental and Architectural Flexibility

The walls function as membranes separating two distinct natural zones (forest and plains), allowing adaptation to two contrasting seasons (dry and wet), as well as three spatial gradients (center, interior, exterior). This approach reflects a deep consideration for harmony between nature and architecture, while providing multiple levels of comfort and environmental control.

Interaction with the Land and Local Materials

Integration with Nature

The house is placed directly on the ground, interwoven with the soil from which the primary building materials were sourced. This positioning aims to enhance visual integration with the surrounding natural landscape while minimizing the visual impact of the large structure.

Low-Profile and Sustainable Design

The project adopts a single-level, low-profile design, using local soil mixed with concrete, giving the finishes a natural appearance that harmonizes with the environment.

Local Craftsmanship in Details

Most of the lighting fixtures and furniture were made on-site using local materials and traditional craftsmanship, reflecting respect for local heritage and enhancing the project’s tactile and spatial character, while adding a personal touch to every element of the house. For further insights on architectural projects and craftsmanship, the Archive provides valuable references.

Sustainability and Renewable Energy

Rainwater Harvesting and Solar Power

The house utilizes rainwater to meet its needs and generates its own electricity through solar panels, reducing dependence on the power grid and enhancing environmental sustainability.

Heating and Water Warming

Engineering features include radiant floor heating using hot water in the bedrooms, while the solar system heats water used throughout the house, providing high energy efficiency.

Natural Ventilation and Indoor Climate Control

All spaces benefit from cross-ventilation, with windows opening in two or three different directions, ensuring continuous air renewal and maintaining thermal comfort without the need for additional mechanical devices. This approach aligns with best practices in Interior Design to enhance comfort and usability.

Design Durability and Adaptation to Nature

Ease of Maintenance and Reliability

The project prioritized easy and economical maintenance by selecting durable materials capable of withstanding harsh weather conditions without the need for painting or cladding. This approach allows the building to become a natural part of the landscape, free from any overt industrial intervention, a principle highlighted in modern Building Materials research.

Seasonal Integration with the Environment

The house incorporates soil and natural earth tones in its construction, allowing it to subtly change with the seasons. This approach embodies the concept of a living structure that adapts, blends, and breathes with its surroundings, enhancing the user’s experience of nature and making the building a dynamic and visually evolving element throughout the year.

✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight

While the Degrees Project offers an innovative architectural vision for interaction between interior and exterior spaces and adaptation to natural terrain, as well as sustainable solutions such as rainwater harvesting and solar energy, implementing such a project raises several practical considerations. The engineering complexity and reliance on multiple flexible openings make execution relatively costly and require careful maintenance to ensure consistent performance. Additionally, the strong integration with the local terrain may limit the possibility of replicating the design in other locations without a thorough reevaluation of climatic and topographical conditions.

Furthermore, the focus on a low-level unit built with local soil demonstrates environmental sensitivity, but it presents challenges related to thermal insulation, moisture resistance, and the ability to adapt to extreme weather variations, requiring specialized expertise during construction. Nevertheless, architects, students, and those interested in environmental design can benefit from the project’s core ideas, such as the integration of indoor and outdoor spaces, use of local materials, and natural ventilation techniques, as lessons to apply in a modified form suitable for different sites and conditions. For more examples of innovative projects, see Projects and Architecture Competitions.