Work
RELIQUIA
HEARTH + RITUALThe bathhouse
By the time I got to the bathhouse I was covered in sweat. I hooked my hand into the notch of the heavy tiled door to roll it aside. It ran smoothly along its track. I slipped my shoes off and slid them under the ridge in the wall as I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Stepping down from the entrance, the tile floor felt cool and the heavy air smelled of eucalyptus and other oils.
I stepped into the shallow edge of the bath. It took up the majority of the room and a small hole in the ceiling formed the sunlight as a perfect glowing circle on the water. The water was still and needed to be heated. The knobs creaked and water rushed out of a faucet that sat on the opposite side, disrupting the silence that I hadn’t noticed until it was gone. I felt along the floor for the seam of the small door that had the heater underneath. On top of it was a nook with matches, and after three attempts, the small fire in the ground was beginning to warm the bath.
While I waited, I rinsed off under the shower. It was so cold that my entire body felt numb. I could see from across the room, steam beginning to hover over the bath’s surface and I resisted the impulse to reach for the towel hanging next to me. I knew that it would be nicer for it to be dry and warm after all of this.
I sat hugging my knees on the edge of the bath and noticed the way that the water envelops my feet as I rock them in and out of the water. I made a meticulous mental list of the things I needed to get done that day before they all arrived. I wasn’t yet overwhelmed.
I carefully worked my way down the three steep steps into the bath, gripping to the rounded tiles for stability. They were varying in height but smooth, like river rocks, massaging the bottoms of my feet. Submerging my head, I welcomed the heat from the water once again. I took a deep inhale and let myself float. The soft current from the water flowing in made it so that my body rotated slowly around the pool. I anchored my gaze to the circular patch of bright blue sky within the dark red tiled hemisphere. Before I could revert back to evaluatingscrutinizing my plan for the day, I distracted myself with the shelf of oils and soaps and sponges that hovered over the edge against the back wall.
The shelf itself was strange. Each of the different products had its own space carved out of its opaque, monolithic surface to hold it: oils protected by ceramic lids, solid soaps, some of which had melted and taken the form of the space holding it, incense and candles. I got to work, scrubbing, lathering, massaging–noticing new freckles on my arms and taking extra time with the sore muscle in my calf.
My brain was quiet and everything felt muffled as it does after these kinds of things. I felt renewed, perfumed. My wrinkled fingertips were the only clue I had as to how much time had passed. The towel was warm. I struggled to see my reflection in the window because of the brightness outside. I am sure it's fine though.
The kitchen
They won’t be here until the evening, but it was better to start early to give the suadero the three hours that it needs to cook. The different colors and textures from produce and food labels populated the thick white wall that stretched the length of the long rectangular kitchen. They were embedded into its uneven surface, populated with nooks and ridges. I hoisted the slabs of rose meat from the large refrigerator onto the counter and I paused for a moment, pressing my palms onto the thick slab I had decided was going to be my workplace. These large smooth surfaces were easy to clean and nothing about this space felt too precious to keep void of life. Same went for the terra cotta floors.
Looking through the glass block wall to see the distorted landscape of thick greenery disrupted by my living quarters, I became aware of the organized chaos that was about to ensue for the next few hours. The ingredients that remained, fresh herbs and some of the vegetables, I was able to collect from the garden that ran along the window.
The choricera in the center of the room, anchored by the offset wall that punctures the space, was the first thing that required attention. I gathered firewood from the pile on the other side of the wall to place under the massive pot and dropped several lit matches into the small opening until a steady fire was burning below.
I began by prepping the beef, scoring and salting the large slabs and trimming the fat to cook in the cast iron pot. Once the choricera was at the right temperature and the fat inside was pooled and fragrant, I submerged each of the pieces of meat. I knew I had plenty of time to leave it to cook so I prepped the tomatillo salsa, sliced limes, chopped cilantro, and diced onion. I was thankful for the breeze that was able to make its way through the space from the gaps between the walls–otherwise the heat from the fire combined with the spices would have felt suffocating.
I tend to leave the heavy door open, so when the first of my friends arrived, they let themselves in–they brought cake and wine. I gave them a tour of the complex. They made sure I knew they were there to help. I showed Anna how to work the masa into balls to press into tortillas while Diana tended to the fire for the choricera. Jasmin had taken over the music, combing through shelves of CDs on the other side of the room, and May was beginning to set the long table around the corner. The concrete slab anchored by two large rocks was filled with candles and dahlia flowers and the scene was completed with the ceramic stoneware plates and bowls, mismatched in form but all with the same deep shiny green glaze. Music grew louder, the last moment of sun came through the windows and cast gold ripples on the countertop–we opened the wine.
The suadero was almost ready. I took it out and chopped it finely on the wood slab inserted into the countertop to put back into the choricera, but in the basket hooked along the side this time. Across the room, Anna had finished with the tortillas so I toasted them one by one on the rounded center and began filling them. Everything came out so fresh that we didn't bother sitting down. May and Diana danced and we helped ourselves to second and third tacos.
We ended up sedated by the amount of food and finally sat down at the table. We updated each other on our lives, reflected on changes that were coming, and debated questions no one knew the answers to while we ate dessert.
So hi. I’m isa.
The stories that I just read describe two of the four structures I’ve designed that comprise a private compound sited just outside of Mexico City. Each of the spaces is designed to enhance quotidian activities of daily life - bathing, cooking, eating, praying, and sleeping. In addition to the bathhouse and kitchen/dining room described above, I also designed a chapel and living quarters. The narratives I wrote to describe the design qualities of these spaces specifically highlight the way that a fireplace or hearth is central to enabling and enhancing every day experiences. For example, the hearth in the living quarters creates a center for introspection, rest, comfort, and coping. Features such as the wood-mosaic interior with imagery that reference personal themes and furniture embedded into the thickened wall reinforced a sense of security emphasizing the relationship that the inhabitant has with themself.
The chapel, on the other hand, reflects on the relationship between the occupant and something larger than themself. Through experiencing the chapel, the occupant feels reverence and humility, and the composition of the space is distinctly sequential to allow for procession and structured ritual. There are classic elements for religious spaces incorporated into the design, including its light design and a tall, reaching form. The natural material, tapia, references old building methods in Latin America, and its consistent use throughout the space make it feel almost abstracted and ethereal.
These different spaces were created to prove that design has the capacity to transform banal tasks into meaningful rituals. Spatial design has the power to elicit intention and care in our daily acts through composition, formal and material expression, and surface articulation.
Within the broader architectural discourse and practice, the hearth, as a fundamental architectural element has become ambiguous. Its original form as a fireplace where heating, cooking, praying, and gathering take place allowed it to earn the position of the center of the home. As these different functions have been dismembered into independent objects and systems such as stove tops and radiant heating systems, we’ve also lost this notion of centrality, of anchoring, in private space–especially in the home. I have, through design, recentered the hearth as a sacred space, as something that acts as the key architectural element in understanding how design can not only facilitate but actually enhance rituals.
As mentioned earlier, the rituals I’ve examined are bathing, cooking, eating, praying, and sleeping. I've designed unique spaces that host each of these acts. Inserted into each of these spaces is a hearth. These four different hearths are compound objects that, through their form and material design, enhance the enacting of the ritual that is to take place within each of these spaces.
The four separate spaces are also understood as four discrete objects arranged as part of a larger composition. They share seams and interact closely with one another … similar to how these different rituals take shape in our daily lives. Where the material strategies were inspired by built works by other architects, the compositional strategy was inspired by the still life composition from Giorgio Morandi. The process of composing the four objects I designed included studies of these paintings, developing understanding of the ways that objects, although separate, are transformed by the arrangement of other things around them.
Ceramics were a driving medium in developing the design, as it relates to the natural materials found in abundance in Mexico, and its more metaphorical associations with the firing process. The final model itself is actually currently being held hostage inside a kiln as we speak, so these that we see here are placeholders.
In addition to studying possibilities for overall composition, I focused on how the interiors of each space have the ability to construct relations with their inhabitants.
The chapel is a center for reflection, for procession and prayer. The form of the chapel is reaching, highlights center, plays with light, and is texturally muted, emphasizing the relationship between occupant and something larger than themselves.
The cooking and eating space is a place for sharing, for service, gathering, for careful attention. The design emphasizes the relationship between the giver and the receiver, the host and the guest. The space and its elements are functional and sober, referencing Gonzalo Fonseca’s sculptures with large blocks that house smaller objects.
The wash room is designed for care, for cleansing. Its interior is lined with tile, and it enhances a sense of privacy with the small door and minimal regular windows, which situate the circular opening in the roof as the primary device where light may enter.
The living quarters is a place for introspection, for peace, for rest, for comfort and coping. The design references Casa Malaparte’s combination of window and fireplace and has an almost impenetrable exterior with a soft and expressive interior.
Overall, this complex of objects and spaces, each designed carefully with respect to light, texture, color, and transparency, and fit out with a hearth, accommodates, heightens, enhances, and even exaggerates specific aspects of daily rituals. In our own daily lives we can translate this idea into designing to facilitate our own rituals, allowing our habits to carve into the spaces we occupy, and perhaps suggesting a recentering of the hearth as a fundamental architectural element to anchor us.