Articles by Valentina Díaz

Suburban tropical residence for a family from Cancún that, through multiple design strategies, incorporates anextensive architectural program and integrates with a sensitized “sense of place” within its immediate context

The project is located in the serene community of Santa María del Oro, Nayarit, a remote municipality with limited resources and infrastructure, situated next to a lake formed in the crater of a volcano. This fragile ecosystem, born of geological forces, demands exceptional environmental sensitivity, as any pollution threatens the delicate balance of this unique body of water. The site presents significant physical challenges—a steep slope, a narrow street-facing facade, and a limited budget—that require innovative solutions capable of working with these conditions rather than opposing them. The reality of building in an isolated municipality involved engaging with local construction capabilities and community values, generating opportunities for respectful collaboration that enrich local perspectives instead of imposing external design criteria incompatible with regional skills and resources.

24 social housing units in Igualada: a piece of public housing that expands collective space, promotes sustainability, and strengthens community life.

They commissioned us to design a first home for a couple relocating from Iquique to Algarrobo, to be closer to their children who live in Santiago and thus be able to see them more frequently. They wanted a relaxed, beach-style house that was easy to inhabit and invited gatherings, where they could comfortably host guests, cook, share meals, watch movies, listen to music, contemplate the horizon, and enjoy nature both as a group and as a couple, or with their granddaughter.

The House of Time: Architecture as a Biological Clock – Located in Babahoyo, Ecuador—a city historically and culturally connected to the river—the project responds to a way of life that has gradually become accelerated and disconnected from the natural context and the artisanal processes to which we belong. The House of Time proposes a place where domestic living can coexist with collective learning. Time is understood through inhabitable cycles: the river, craftsmanship, and shared experiences.

In the upper part of the town of Valle de Bravo, Casa Valle is built on a terrain with irregular topography and complex polygonal features. After a steep ascent, vertical planes of glass, steel, and wood emerge between pine trunks. Above them, a concrete platform projects in front of the tree canopies, hovering over a rocky slope with its vegetation.

The project explores a specific mode of architectural intervention based not on the incorporation of complex technology, but on the precise reinterpretation of traditional construction systems to generate new spatial, environmental, and programmatic conditions. The central operation, entitled Tejar cielo, consists of constructing an active roof plane from a single system, combining opaque ceramic tiles and glass tiles without altering the geometric or constructive logic of the whole. The roof ceases to be a mere enclosing element and becomes a device capable of filtering natural light, registering the passage of time, and defining a changing atmosphere for the space it shelters.

A single-family home, distributed in two isolated volumes that rise with the slope of the land, with an atrium space between them, which resolves the entrances, communications, and generates a multipurpose gathering space, protecting them bioclimatically.

Above the Pacific coastline of Costa Rica, pavilions unfold around a garden and connect beneath a single floating roof. Nature becomes the pathway, guiding movement between views of ocean, forest, and sky.

Las Vegas Park is located in the center of the city of Portoviejo, on the right bank of the river that bears the same name. Its construction took place during an important period of transition, following the earthquake that devastated the city in April 2016. It is considered a symbol of the rebirth that Portoviejo is experiencing. Every weekend, in its generous green spaces, family gatherings and celebrations occur, as well as various cultural events, both organized and spontaneous.