What does an architect do when he has to design his own house?
Every architect dreams of designing their own house ( including me 😉 ) But once you get that chance, what will come out? There is no need to comply with strange demands of a difficult client… Or … Maybe the most difficult client is actually yourself. Let’s find out how it worked out for this house.
It took Alfonso 2 years to design and another 2 years to build this house. He designed it to his own specifications and the needs of his family, whilst carefully considering the site. Alfonso Garduño was my professor of architecture when I did an exchange semester in Mexico 10 years ago .
Even though it has cost Alfonso (also known as Poncho) a lot of sweat and maybe tears, the result is a truly amazing house.
He used on-site made compressed earth bricks for parts of the walls and ceilings. The house is very closed off to the street side, whilst really open on the garden side where the views stretch out over a cactus landscape below the garden.
You can check for yourself what you think of this architect’s house in the video, and comment below.
Check out some of my own architectural work: Zambian Luxury Lodge link and Burkina Faso NGO Office here
More about Alfonso Garduno’s house on his company’s website
How we took the pictures and video
This was my first full architectural drone video, using a DJI Mavic Pro. The weather looked great – a blue sky with clouds. But it was extremely windy, which made it very difficult for the drone to stay stable to take sharp pictures and steady footage. I did manage to get everything a bit more stable with post processing in Adobe Premiere. If you’re wondering why in some of the pictures the house looks like a miniature, that’s has been achieved using a tilt-shift effect in the editing. If you’re interested in more video’s like this, let us know and subscribe to our blog for updates when we post new articles.
