Mexican award-winning house design - in ArchiCAD

Adriá + Broid + Rojkind Architects - Mexico

In 1997, Michel Rojkind, partner of Adriá + Broid + Rojkind, traded in his job as drummer for a popular rock band in Mexico and Latin America, for one as architect and began working with ArchiCAD 5.0. Rojkind brings as much artistic passion to his design work as he did to drumming. "I've been working with ArchiCAD since version 5.0, which was the first version distributed in Mexico, and have been following very close the improvements ever since," Rojkind said.

A passionate designer, Rojkind finds ArchiCAD^® an essential tool in developing many design proposals for all his clients. This method of work, using ArchiCAD, allows him to provide weekly updates of all his projects to his clients. Michael strongly believes that the client has to be happy with the architect proposals, without losing his design integrity. This conviction has in practice earned him an excellent reputation from his clients without losing his architectural style and ideas. More important than him being a power user, is that he is able to have weekly adaptations of his work, giving him the opportunity to have a standard of service. ArchiCAD and Art*lantis, allows him to deliver stunning presentations every day which is essential for someone who often has weekly meetings with more than 3 clients. ArchiCAD not only helps him better visualize his projects, but gives him a tool to standardize the quality of the communication with his clients.

Since using ArchiCAD, Rojkind and his partners and associates, have won several public and private competitions, due to their ability to try very many different alternatives before submitting work to each competition. The F2 House, is their most recent award winning project, honored in the May 2002 issue of Architectural Record as one of this year?s Record Houses.

The Project: F2 House

The Architectural Record award winning F2 House got its start when the client, Alfredo Fuentes, asked Adriá + Broid + Rojkind Architectes to visit the site he was considering buying. The site is located on the borders of metropolitan area in a neighborhood full of conventional houses of Mexico City. The triangular property, which opens to a forest, was covered with several large trees that had the architects immediately convincing Fuentes that it was a perfect site for an interesting project.

The site chosen, ArchiCAD was key to the client?s decision to have Adriá + Broid + Rojkind Architectes design the house. Rojkind explains, "The Client (Alfredo Fuentes) has a strong background in IT, having studied artificial intelligence and then begun work for Microsoft Mexico. When we showed him how we present our projects to our clients, through rendering, virtual reality scenes, animations and models, he immediately wanted to work with us," Rojkind explained. "To be able to have a walkthrough of his house with the materials and lighting we had been talking about and not have even spend a dime in construction yet, for him was incredible."

The architects chose an L shape scheme, which adapts to the triangular lot, choosing the best orientations and eluding the views to the surrounding constructions. A circulation axe structures the house from the access to the lineal stair that connects the three levels. These are in only one wing of the house. A concrete case with perforations is embedded between the light slabs of the perpendicular body, contrasting opacity and solidity with the lightness and transparency of the plans that conforms the house.

"We believe that our clients have more confidence as soon as they are shown how it's going to look and how the sun is going to move around the project. But the real commitment for us as architects is that once you show a render or an animation, you better work real hard to make it look better than the render or at least look exactly like the render. We learn a lot about our projects using ArchiCAD because we actually build the project in the computer and can avoid a lot of mistakes that could have happened in the construction site. It's the closest you can get to your project before actually building it physically." Rojkind concluded.