Casa Sin Nombre is a minimal residence located in Morelia, Mexico, designed by HW STUDIO Arquitectos. Paola and Jorge’s harrowing experience with a robbery motivated them to build a new home, with a focus on understanding three key variables: the location, the client, and the inner self. The new house needed to be located close to Morelia’s aqueduct, a historical gem that supplied water to the city in the sixteenth century. The couple’s strong devotion to the Catholic faith was also taken into account during the design process. While their current home featured many religious symbols and baroque furniture, they wanted a more minimalist aesthetic with a greater emphasis on the use of light as a decorative element.

To truly understand the couple’s spiritual search and religious devotion, the architects employed Vipassana, an observation technique focused on the inner self. The resulting design aimed to evoke the barrel vaults seen in Mexican Catholic temples, while still maintaining a minimalist aesthetic. The architecture had to be introspective, sealed away from the outside world with no windows or openings, relying on patios to provide illumination. This design not only reinforced a temple-like atmosphere of a sacred space but also allowed the architects to explore the relationship between emptiness and substance in architectural projects.

Photographer by Cesar Bejar