Iron Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2022
Living the Gardens Villas
- A' Design Award 2022 Iron Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2022
- CLIENT: Sanzpont Arquitectura
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 17,942
- Verification code E05EC50F1F · Verify this award
About Living the Gardens Villas
Living the Gardens is a residential complex of nine villas in Cancun, Mexico, built on a site of 2,373 square meters. Each villa has three levels and covers 216 to 275 square meters. The ground floor holds a living room, dining room, kitchen, terrace, half bathroom and an interior garden. The upper floor holds a master bedroom and two secondary bedrooms. Each villa also has a roof garden. Local materials and passive bioclimatic design reduce energy use, while wooden louvers and native vegetation give solar protection.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Living The Gardens development is a complex of nine villas in condominium regime, on a land of 2,373 square meters located in Cancun, Mexico.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The 9 villas are buildings of 3 levels with a total of 216 to 275 square meters each. The ground floor includes a living room, dining room, kitchen, terrace, half bathroom, and an interior garden. The first floor includes a master bedroom with a bathroom, dressing room and a balcony, and two secondary bedrooms with a shared bathroom. Each villa has a roof garden. Finally, the amenities include a pool, garden, picnic area, outdoor gym, yoga area, sun deck and pets area.
- Tags
- housing, villas, sustainability, cross-ventilation, concrete structure
- Production Technology
- The project is entirely built with local materials because, more than an economic benefit, it reduces the environmental impacts of transporting materials long distances and supports the local economy.
- Design Challenge
- The structural challenge was to avoid structural support elements on the ground floor. The structure was solved in a way that the rooftop carries the intermediate slab with columns that, work in tension instead of compression, just like the tensioners in a steel structure. In other words, the ground floor roof is hanging from the rooftop. Imitating a steel structure, the slabs function as the lower and upper chord, the lateral columns function as tensioners and the block walls work as diagonals
- Project Duration
- The project started in 2021 in Cancun, Mexico and is planned to be finished in 2023.
- Operation Flow
- Solar protection is a requirement to obtain a more energy effective dwelling in most climates, but in a hot climate like the one where Living The Gardens is built, it is essential. The project is protected from solar incidence with native vegetation, the volumetry of the building itself and wooden louvers located in the south facade, where the solar incidence is more intense.
- Research
- The first step to obtain a sustainable housing product is to make a climate analysis and to search and apply the best bioclimatic and sustainable strategies for the project. In the region, the climate is warm and humid, and due to these characteristics, the project implements solar protection, natural cross-ventilation and use of native vegetation. The application of these and other strategies make a sustainable and low energy consumption housing product.
- Inspiration
- The project aims to promote the reduction of the use of resources, economic savings and a more sustainable housing product through passive and bioclimatic design.
- Image Credits
- Image #1: sanzpont [arquitectura], Living The Gardens, 2021
Image #2: sanzpont [arquitectura], Living The Gardens, 2021
Image #3: sanzpont [arquitectura], Living The Gardens, 2021
Image #4: sanzpont [arquitectura], Living The Gardens, 2021
Image #5: sanzpont [arquitectura], Living The Gardens, 2021 - Patents
- Copyrights belong to sanzpont [arquitectura], 2021.
Colors of Living the Gardens Villas
Design Interview about Living the Gardens Villas
The main principle of this project is to recover an abandoned construction with multi-family housing, with a design that respects and integrates with the environment generating holistic natural and familiar ambiences. The project also offers Wellness amenities such as a yoga deck, outdoor fitness area, picnic and vegetable garden, pool, art corridor, massage tepees, social relax tepees, playground and pet-friendly area.
The main focus was to create dwellings with an innovative design, but with a local architectural sensation. An avant-garde architecture that feels endemic.
Our plan for this project is that the families that inhabit it can enjoy harmony. It is especially important for us that the users can see their family grow here and that all users, but especially children, create significant relationships within this compact community and create a strong social fabric these days when social disintegration is a big problem.
Although the development of the design concept lasted a year, the truth is that it is the accumulation of many years of experience in architecture. We have been refining the design and searching for more optimal solutions that generate greater efficiency.
Living The Gardens is a shared development where we, the architect and the real estate developer, wanted to generate a different real estate concept that is not just economically centred but it is a concept that offers quality in architecture and quality of life to the users
The project is a development that is being carried out in partnership with several companies to launch it on the real estate market.
It started as a commission but in the end, it became a collaborative project with the property to achieve a common goal together, integrating both the economic vision of real estate development and the architectural, social and sustainable vision.
The influence of this building has been our past experiences and a constant search for excellence in our projects, all of this portrayed in local architecture.
The target customers are the families that want to live in a site with recreational and social spaces that allow having an excellent quality of life integrated with nature.
The location, security and the care that has been put into designing the project as a space that takes care of the physical, emotional and social health of the users. Also, it is real estate development not economically centred but that also gives importance to the quality of life of the families that will inhabit it.
Living The Gardens is based on the enjoyment of the gardens that are generated in the exterior spaces attached to the architecture.
To develop Living The Gardens we use BIM software, real-time visualization software, and energetic analysis software to achieve a sustainable and bioclimatic architecture.
The most unique aspect of the design is the integration of the local materials in avant-garde architecture.
To carry out this project, it was necessary to collaborate with a coordinated multidisciplinary team in which each one contributed with solutions, creating a better result for the building.
The role of technology is found especially in the development of the project, using specialized software BIM technology.
As we normally do in all our projects, we made research on the local climate in Cancun and the specific microclimate where the building is located. Also, the building´s congruence with the city and the urban planning had to be analyzed. And finally, we used specialized software to analyze each one of the facades to give the best response to the wind, sunlight, and other climate factors.
The challenge was to design a project on a piece of land that had an abandoned construction with a single-family house since it had to be used and restored in such a way that multi-family homes of excellent spatial quality would fit.
We wanted to spread the word that even in a real estate development project, it is possible to offer a high-quality architecture that cares for the environment and users' quality of life while receiving economic profits.
We learned a lot about the best use and maintenance of traditional materials used in a singular design.
We would like to emphasize that when the architect and real estate developer see each other as a team right from the beginning, and not just as a client or a service provider, we can make a better and more holistic result.