Casa Emme is an inventive reinterpretation of the functional brief of share working space.

The foundation of the project is the former family house where the owner grew up, which has been converted and extended to form a series of differently interpretable spaces specifically designed for the latest modalities of creative working.

Relatable to precedents such as the constructivists’ workers’ club model of the urban condenser, the reality of the project is derived from the client’s idea that “it is from home that first steps are created and then launched to the world, combining family, friendships, networks, conversations, ideas, projects, businesses, and stories.” With an awareness of historical and theoretical contexts, as well as the latest advancements and trends in digital and social media, the architype of the house forms the conceptual and functional basis of both the coworking business and the architectural project, which are inseparably entwined. The project operates in a design realm imbued with a personal but generic sense of home, involving a gradation of private and shared spaces that are emotionally familiar but adapted as a model for coworking.

The design creates different, connectable, dividable, indoor and outdoor rooms drawing on the senses through the control of colour, texture, light, volumes of space and acoustic effects. Spaces nurture diverse modes of individual or group activity. Specialised technical facilities are provided that are suitable for podcasting, conversation, meetings, internet and digital production, but also craft, film, making and cooking, as well as exhibiting, displaying, performing, presenting and selling. Existing eclectic features of the house are retained but white washed to maintain the memory of the past, while the building fabric is boldly punctured, opened up, reinvigorated and augmented with new spaces including gardens. Full colour saturation, sliding walls, built in niches and seating result in a quirky combination of old and new, personal and corporate, seriousness and fun.

The project is located in Mexico, in the city of Mexicali, which is lively, inventive and entrepreneurial, with significant industries that capitalise on the proximity to the USA border. The climate is of extreme heat, harsh sunlight, and low rainfall, resulting in a gritty urban context that is almost entirely hard paved or barren, with vehicular movement rather than pedestrian, and few public spaces. Into this context the new project is of refreshing inventiveness, both for the necessary, practical and inspirational atmospheres created, and also for the business and cultural opportunities it enables that did not previously exist.

The design was realised through a multi disciplinary collaboration between local and international practitioners, combining different cultures, ideas and ways of working, to create a place that is entirely new but also appropriate, valuable and definitively grounded in the local community.