Broissin Arquitectos Reinterprets the Tree House in Glass


© Alexander D'La Roche

© Alexander D'La Roche

Design House, which is held annually within the framework of Design Week Mexico, is celebrating its tenth anniversary. In this year’s edition, 24 local designers and architects transformed an abandoned home, each restoring a room or outdoor area. One of these interventions, by Broissin Architects, reconstructed the outdoor patio into a micro-forest with the small, glass house placed on a centenary ash tree.


© Alexander D'La Roche

© Alexander D'La Roche

In our work, we like to find the origin of the places we intervene. The house takes its name from the word Chantli. In Nahuatl – an official language of the ancient inhabitants of the great Tenochtitlán – means house or room, and kuaulakoyokan, which means in the treetop.
– Broissin Architects


© Alexander D'La Roche

© Alexander D'La Roche

In popular culture, the tree house is a symbol that refers to childhood and the search for a personal sanctuary that gives us refuge, allows us to disconnect, and in turn, a site for adventures and dreams. Although this space is conventionally made of wood, the design team reinterpreted it in glass provided by Saint-Gobain. Acting as the conclusion of the Design House, the project refers to the play ‘Privacy’ by Diego Luna, spokesman for this project, where the supposed privacy that social networks promise us is questioned. In the same way, the transparency of the house also seeks to invite reflection on the privacy that is sought in a built space, elements that are sometimes compromised by the misuse of space, by the user itself, or by factors of the architectural design, as is the case premeditated in this exercise.


© Alexander D'La Roche

© Alexander D'La Roche

Learn more about Design Week Mexico here.