Architecture Wednesday: Casa O'

Carlos was born and raised in Mexico City, and speaks fondly of the city, and loves seeing how the city looks today, but he has no intention of going back there to live; ever. Even when I find something like this and ask him if he could live there.

“No.”

This is Casa O’, a home designed by Despacho Arquitectos HV in 2016. It’s a big house, with bold and beautiful gardens that remind me or a private resort, and who wouldn’t want to live there.

Um, Carlos.

Located behind a stone wall in Mexico City, Casa O’ has many things to love:  a gorgeous patio complete with a lounge area and fire pit; tropical plants and green lawns and balconies and terraces; and inside, floor to ceiling shelves in several rooms to hold books, art, records, and more books, and seating perfect upon which to curl up with a good book or a pleasant tune.

But, you know, if books ain’t yo thang, follow one of the glass walled hallways or staircases until you find the television room, the bar … the bar, part gentlemen’s room and part wine bar … the kitchen with its garden views, a patio, a bedroom, a bathroom with a view.

It’s perfect, it’s private, it’s lush, I’m a lush, and Carlos still says, “No.”

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Architecture Wednesday: Tepozcuautla House

This house is made up of two separate geometric concrete volumes—one housing services and the other housing the main areas of the house—with the two bodies joined by steel bridges with glass floors that do not touch the trees or the forest, and give the sensation of walking above and through the vegetation. A staircase is part of these bridges and, as it is completely cantilevered from the house, it also does not touch the forest either.

These two concrete volume are closed to the outside yet almost entirely open to the gardens and terraces facing south and east . The home was built of concrete and metal with enormous wooden beams to create wide open spans without support; the entire structural system of the house is exposed to show how it all “works”.

It’s clean and sleek, and so open to the outside that it feels like you are outside looking in, or inside looking out. And, yes, it is a lot of glass, and a lot of stairs, but the feeling of being in the trees ... serenity now!

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Architecture Wednesday: House With Four Courtyards

In Mexico, many of the homes revolve around a central courtyard, and this modern home in the old town of Tacubaya house aims to reinterpret that use in a contemporary manner.

It all started with a vacant lot … and now there’s a perimeter wall — designed to mimic older homes in the neighborhood — nearly twenty feet high to contain the space. This wall becomes a discreet facade along the street that respects the height of the neighboring properties and the harmony of the street.

On the ground, the house reads like a chessboard, alternating solid volumes and courtyards; but as the house is made almost entirely of glass, the space is conceived as one, inside and outside. The metal structure of the home creates a three-dimensional grid that defines the spaces, but is thin enough to seem almost insignificant.

The house has two floors, with public spaces — parking, entrance, laundry, kitchen dining room and study — on the first floor, and three bedrooms, each with its own dressing room and bathroom, on the second floor. Only the living room takes both floors, with its double height ceilings, connecting the two floors, the stairs and the courtyards.

And each courtyard is also a garden in its own right, giving the impression of living in contact with the outside; and, thanks to the courtyards, the house is awash in sunlight all day.

But the gardens don’t stop in the courtyard; the roof is its own garden, with a glass cube protruding amid the plants; it regulates the temperature of the house and is the ideal place to sit in the hammock and read, watch the vegetation and the roofs of the old town of Tacubaya.

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It's Official: ALL Mexican States Must Recognize Gay Marriages

Seriously.
In Mexico.
And they call it a backwards country.
But yesterday Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that all 31 states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in the capital.
That's right. ALL states must recognize same-sex marriages.
Now, that doesn't mean they are legal in all states; for the time being marriage equality is the law only in Mexico City--think of it as Mexico's Washington DC--but the unions of gay and lesbian couples are recognized in the ENTIRE country.
The decision of the court was based on an article of Mexico's Constitution that requires states to recognize legal contracts drawn up elsewhere, though the ruling does not exactly specify what degree of recognition must be granted to same-sex couples.
Mexico City's same-sex marriage law, enacted last March, gives married gay and lesbian couples the right to adopt children, to jointly apply for bank loans, to inherit wealth and to be covered by their spouses' insurance policies.
In Mexico.
A place some folks describe as backwards.
But, no, that's here, in the United States.

Equality Above And Below the Border

Big movement on the marriage equality front, both in California and in Mexico.

California's Attorney General--and gubernatorial candidate--Jerry Brown filed a motion with Judge Vaughn Walker requesting that no stay be placed on the ruling overturning Prop H8. So, if Walker decides to lift the current stay, there would be a brief period of legal same-sex marriages performed until the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals officially takes the case and imposes its own stay.

And within moments of Brown's filing to lift the stay, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also filed a motion to lift the ban until the case is heard on appeal. This was quite the switch for Schwarzenegger, who in the past has been against marriage equality.

Let's hope the stay is lifted, even temporarily, and marriage will become the right of every Californian, and set the stage for the rest of the country.

Meanwhile, south of the border.....

The Supreme Court of Mexico ruled by a vote of 8-2 that a Mexico City law allowing same-sex marriage is constitutional. The law, which passed last year, was challenged by Mexican Attorney General Arturo Chavez, who argued that allowing same-sex marriages violates the guarantee of familial integrity under the Mexican Constitution. The law was also challenged by the state governments of Jalisco and Baja California, which argued that the same-sex marriage law had a negative impact on them. But the court rejected their arguments, finding that the constitution did not specify what constituted a family.

The court will rule next week on the issue of adoption by same-sex couples, which was allowed under the Mexico City law, and whether the marriages must be recognized nationwide.

Carlos and I both got a bit of an ironic chuckle about this as he is from Mexico City and I am from California and here we are in South Carolina.

Ah, well, the dominoes might just begin falling in our direction.

Ebrard Stands his Ground In Mexico City

I never realized it before, but it looks like Marcelo Ebrard is Spanish for Gavin Newsom.

Ebrard, as you may recall, is the Mayor of Mexico City who gave the okay for marriage equality there recently. And, in the face of opposition from, who else, the Catholic Church, and his conservative foes, Ebrard says he plans to defend the capital's gay-marriage law and insists the ordinance will take effect in March despite an appeal by federal prosecutors.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard says the federal appeal on constitutional grounds is wrong. He says nothing in Mexico's constitution prohibits same-sex marriage or adoption by gay couples.

The city's legal adviser, Leticia Bonifaz, said the first gay marriages will be performed in early May while the Supreme Court hears the case; the federal Attorney General's Office filed a challenge with the Supreme Court arguing the law violates constitutional provisions on the family and the protection of children.

The law is a first for Latin America.

And so is Mayor Ebrard.