In September 2014 Hurricane Odile landfall in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico, left widespread destruction and a large number of affected and homeless people.
The project for “Casa O” emerges as our response to the existing need to provide affordable and quality housing to people affected by Hurricane Odile, trying to offer the best architectural solutions to those most in need.
The occasion offered the perfect opportunity to radically rethink social housing and many of the formulas given for granted in municipal housing manuals and even by architectural professionals and academic institutions (in Mexico at least).
The genesis of the project lies in the idea of creating development of social life around a green core. This same idea is responsible for having generated the Latin American (colonial) cities, which are organized around central plazas, and before that the Andalusian patio. The patio, main element of the project, is an architectural tool inherited to Latin America culture from Arab cultures (through the Spanish colonization), which allows in a very economical (and sustainable) way, to cool down the living spaces in a house while an intimate, social and meeting space is also generated.
Develop life around a green and safe core.