5X5X5 House

Casa 5X5X5 is an exploration of affordable housing prototypes in Monterrey, Mexico. Each unit comprises 125 cubic meters. It was intended as a more humane space for young people with the versatility to grow one floor or towards the back. Important qualities are repetition and rhythm along with a variation; These qualities will provide better walkability than typical peri-urban homes. Too much repetition is boring and creates a neighborhood devoid of experience, but too much variation without a certain rhythm leads to a chaotic urban landscape. This project seeks the midpoint between these poles.

Inside, the houses are distributed in a simple way with small spaces but rich in spaces and low-cost but pleasant materials such as pine wood. The social area has double height and a connection to the bedroom on the second floor, which does not have walls to achieve openness and spaciousness. In fact, the only walls needed inside are those of the bathroom. The cars have to be parked parallel to the sidewalk to prioritize the human over the car, this protects the passerby from traffic.

Modernity has led us to think of houses as machines that are entered by car, but it has a very high cost and must stop. Ultimately, this design is not intended to be a brilliant watershed, but rather a simple and tangible approach to a growing market in Latin America. We are optimistic that this kind of exploration will generate reflection and criticism of the archetypal serial housing that so many "developers" continue to build around the globe.