DL1310 Apartments by Michan Architecture Boasts Dynamic Facade

DL1310 Apartments is a mid-market residential building designed by Michan Architecture in Mexico City. Completed in 2020, it consists of seven one- to two-bedroom units and a basement for parking. The project utilised cast-in-place concrete, which according to the studio provides multiple benefits for the building. “It was decided early on that the construction system would be cast-place-concrete,” said the studio. “These were constraints that satisfied the client’s desires and simultaneously allowed us to focus our efforts on an interesting opportunity in the project, the apertures.”

The units are simple and straightforward, Mihcan noted, while the building maximizes the height and footprint allowed by the site. The simple design drove Michan to develop an intricate facade, which opens up the space to provide light and views as well as fresh air on all sides of the building. The design utilises traditional construction techniques – specifically board formwork – alongside materials informed by historical examples, such as concrete used in the architecture of Latin America.

To open up the building, the studio developed a system of apertures that are set in the concrete facade at an angle. The angled concrete apertures provide what the studio called a “forced oblique perspective”, which also stretches the windows to provide additional light and unique views to the outdoors, meaning that no two interior views are the same.

“The rectangular windows are rotated into the building’s facade, resulting in two ruled surfaces at the top and bottom and transforming the window into an inverted trapezoidal bay,” the studio explained. “As the windows rotate in, the slabs appear to pull at the head and sill.”

While the units are straightforward given the limitations of the site, the facade gives them character through how the openings break the building envelope. “These windows also produced different interior moments as the shifting facade met the standardized unit layout,” said the studio.

“A number of full-scale mock-ups allowed us to find a tectonic articulation that used board formed concrete as an integral expression of the aperture concept,” said the studio. Re-usable fibreglass casting modules were also used to create the windows, as part of a larger attempt to reconcile design and construction traditions with modern technology.

“Research into the history of cast concrete ruled surfaces in the architecture of Latin America” shaped the design, according to the studio. “The final methodology used traditional construction techniques combined with re-usable fiberglass casting modules to produce an alternative expression between digital technology and traditions of construction.”

Michan Architecture has completed a number of projects in Mexico, including a plastic dome on a hill in San Miguel de Allende and a brick wall-covered structure in Mexico City.