House on the Hill is a minimal residence located in Morelia, Mexico, designed by HW Studio. The inspiration behind this project is derived from carefully listening to the subtle murmurs and whispers of environments like this, as well as the client’s search for protection and shelter. Pulling a bedsheet over ourselves is a very elemental act that alludes to the most basic part of the self; a bed sheet hides protects, wraps, and creates a space beneath it that is so safe and intimate as to keep away any spirit, ghost, or demon that may be surrounding the room. At the same time, this project generates a continuity in the beautiful living surface around the land, forming a new hill in a place already surrounded by many. The architecture is like an accent on the words of a poem, like a comma or a question mark, but never the actual poem itself. The poem is already written by the pines, the oaks, the sweet acacia, the fireflies, the road, the fence, the neighbor’s water well, the earth, the orchard, and the nightingale. Four concrete walls contribute accents to the poem, surprisingly emerging from the landscape; two of them bearing the land of the new hill created by raising the bedsheet, and two others framing the access as they escort guests into the house. 

Photography by César Béjar Studio, Juan Pablo Guerra, Dane Alonso