Rural House

Apan, Mexico

2019

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On October 12, 1938, Frank Lloyd Wright patented a design for a “new, original, and ornamental dwelling”—a pinwheel arrangement of four units divided by intersecting walls. Later that year, a prototype was built in Ardmore, Pennsylvania as part of the Suntop Homes development, a project Wright called the “quadruple house.” Though only one unit was realized, Wright saw it as a model for future low-cost group dwellings organized around a shared center.

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This project reinterprets this idea for a rural site in Mexico, adapting the quadruple house as a framework for incremental housing. Starting with a cross of concrete block party walls and a single dwelling in one quadrant, the project allows the remaining three quadrants to serve as outdoor space or accommodate future additions. This approach reflects patterns of rural domestic life—where outdoor areas support cooking, washing, gardening, and gathering—and embraces the possibility of phased growth. Unlike Wright’s original scheme, which envisioned four simultaneous dwellings, our version anticipates gradual expansion, with one or two additional homes surrounding a shared outdoor zone. Arranged in circular clusters across the agricultural landscape, these groupings propose a new model of collective living rooted in flexibility, landscape, and family life.

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The project was built as a prototype within a selected group of full-scale social housing models developed for Infonavit’s Housing Laboratory in Apan, Mexico. Conceived as a testing ground for new ideas in affordable housing, the laboratory brings together diverse architectural strategies aimed at shaping future policy and construction for low-income and rural communities across the country.

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Designers:  Jackilin Hah Bloom, Florencia Pita

Project Team:  Leila Khododad, Esra Durukan

Structural Engineer:  Sergio Barrios