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Casa Cardona is a 165 m², two-level family residence in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, designed by Sensacional Dinámica Mexicana (SDM) for a grandmother, a mother and a young son. Completed in 2025, the house answers the Potosí Highlands’ intense sun and arid setting with thick-looking mass, shaded openings, ceramic-brick latticework, patios and carefully directed daylight. Its deep pink exterior is tied to the region’s tuna cardona (prickly pear) and changes from pink to wine, purple or violet as the sun moves. Rather than treating color, vegetation and circulation as decoration, the project makes them part of everyday domestic life.
What is Casa Cardona?
Casa Cardona began as a conventional 165 m² real-estate commission and was reframed as a home with cultural and emotional value. SDM organized it around the distinct routines and privacy requirements of three generations, while shared rooms provide places for encounters. The result is less a generic family plan than what Glocal describes as a family portrait made from routes, pauses, meetings and moments of refuge.
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SDM, founded in San Luis Potosí in 2013, works across architecture, furniture, landscape and contemporary-art curation. Sergio Padilla, identified in the studio press material as its director, says, “Here, architecture ceases to be a static object and becomes an experience.”
How does the house respond to the San Luis Potosí desert?
The principal response is a “mass over void” strategy. A solid, mineral-like exterior moderates exposure, while openings are controlled rather than spread evenly across the facade. Latticework, patios and changes between bright areas and penumbra create shade and make the interior more permeable without abandoning the sense of shelter.
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Shade, orientation and filtered light
Oriented openings regulate how sunlight enters the rooms. As the day and seasons change, the house moves through different levels of brightness and shadow. The design is therefore a spatial and atmospheric response to the highland climate, not a claim about a quantified energy-performance result.
Small patios as climatic and social thresholds
Compact patios connect rooms to the sky and landscape. They also provide pauses between more private and more collective parts of the plan, allowing circulation itself to become part of the experience.
Why is Casa Cardona pink?
The deep pink render references the tuna cardona/prickly pear and the colors of endemic desert vegetation. It is intended as a local and ecological reference, not a neutral finish applied after the design was complete. Grazing sunlight alters the perceived hue, so the facade can read as pink, wine, purple or deep violet at different moments.
Sergio Padilla Contreras told Wallpaper*, “I want people to realise that beauty can be severe and austere, and that colour itself can be a radical statement.” In Casa Cardona, that statement is attached to the specific landscape of San Luis Potosí.
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How does the plan support three generations?
The house gives each room its own pace and degree of intimacy instead of assuming that a multigenerational household shares one routine. Private spaces allow retreat, while the social areas support overlapping schedules and chance meetings.
Shared life without forced togetherness
Routes, thresholds and pauses let residents choose when to be together. This is a more flexible approach than a single open room intended to serve every activity simultaneously.
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A tree is planted inside the main living area. Its leaves, scent, growth and shade bring foliage into the center of family life and make seasonal change visible indoors. The tree also introduces a slower measure of time than the building’s fixed walls and finishes.
What materials and architectural elements are used?
El Arqui MX identifies the project as a built, two-level residence with 165 m² of usable area. Its listed materials and elements are:
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| Element | Material or treatment | Role in the design |
|---|---|---|
| Exterior walls | Pink textured render | Establishes the landscape-linked color and solid exterior character |
| Screening | Ceramic-brick lattice | Filters light and supports the mass-and-void strategy |
| Floors | Clay flooring | Adds an earthen material presence to daily spaces |
| Structure and surfaces | Exposed concrete | Reinforces the mineral, austere language |
| Interior elements | Wood, painted steel and glass | Provide warmer, lighter and more transparent counterpoints |
LGM Studio is credited as photographer in the project information.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What makes the design more than a colorful facade?
Color, vegetation and daylight are connected to use. The facade changes as sunlight moves; the tree changes as it grows; patios and latticework shape movement and shadow; and ordinary rooms carry the project’s central ideas. This is why the house’s architectural experience is found in transitions—between exterior and interior, brightness and penumbra, privacy and encounter—rather than in a single formal gesture.
Publication and date clarification
The project is described by Glocal and El Arqui MX as completed in 2025. ArchDaily metadata lists a publication date of 26 October 2026, so that date should be read as publication or database metadata rather than a revised completion date unless the studio states otherwise.
Name variation in published listings
Most project material identifies Sergio Padilla or Sergio Padilla Contreras. A DNA Paris listing names “Sergio Padilla Lopez” as lead designer and labels the project a winner in Architecture/Housing, but does not provide an awarding body, date or criteria. Those details should not be treated as independently verified award information.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Casa Cardona located?
It is in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, in the Potosí Highlands. The project’s climate and plant references are specific to this highland, arid setting rather than to Mexico as a whole.
How large is Casa Cardona?
The residence has 165 m² of usable area and is arranged over two levels. The published descriptions do not provide a separate site-area figure.
Is Casa Cardona open to the public?
The available project information presents it as a private single-family residence, not as a museum or regularly accessible public building. Visits would therefore depend on the owners or the design studio.
Who photographed Casa Cardona?
El Arqui MX credits LGM Studio for the project photography. That credit identifies the photographer, not the architect or builder.
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