Crystal Treehouse in Mexico by BROISSIN

BROISSIN designed a transparent crystal treehouse that is located at the foothills of the long 'Sierra de las Cruces', which is the occidental limit of the Valley of Mexico's basin.

Architect: BROISSIN
Location: Ciudad de Mexico
Area: 70 m2
Partner in Charge: M.Arch. Gerardo Broissin
Project Leader: Arq. Loredana Croci, Arq. Pablo Morales
Photography: Alexander D' La Roche

From the architect: As is usual we like to take back some part of the past of the places we intervene so, the tree house gets its name from the word ‘chantil’ which in classic nahuatl – Valley of Mexico’s habitants official language in the great Tenochtitlan -  meaning house or room, and from the word ‘kuaulakoyokan’ which means ‘in the tree top’.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary, Design House is an annual event that stands out in the calendar of Design Week Mexico.  This year’s edition takes an abandoned house that is transformed by 24 local interior designers and architects, each one restoring a room or outdoor area in their own style within the frame of the World Design Capital 2018. Broissin was in charge of the house’s access patio and transformed it into a micro forest with the small tree house over a centennial ash tree.

By popular cult the tree house is an element that refers back to childhood and the search of a space that is your own that grants us refuge, disconnection and that is the scenario of adventures and dreams.  Conventionally it is constructed in wood and now we reinterpret it in crystal. In first place, to remember the innocence we have as children which fades over time, as the warmth of wood is now cunningly replaced by the coldness of glass.

Like a colophon, the project makes reference to the play ‘Privacidad’ by mexican actor Diego Luna, spokesperson of this project, where the supposed privacy promised by social media is questioned; in the same way the diaphanous of the tree house also seeks to invite on a reflection about the security and privacy requested from a constructed space, elements that are sometimes compromised by the misuse of space at the hand of the user itself or by factors inherent to the architectural design, as is the case in this premeditated exercise.

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