La Casita Merida

La Casita is a residential renovation in central Mérida that transforms a narrow 4.5-meter-wide historic house into a vacation retreat organized around light, water, and material texture. Laseu Studio renovated the original structure and designed a new rear building in the garden, adding two bedrooms while preserving the intimate scale and character of the existing home.

Originally arranged as a sequence of small rooms with limited openings, the house was reworked to improve light, circulation, and connection to the exterior. Small skylights were introduced throughout the historic portion, and large wood-framed glass doors open the rear of the house completely toward the courtyard, pool, and new garden-facing addition.

The courtyard is conceived as a linear outdoor room framed by tall textured walls. A long lap pool extends the geometry of the narrow site and integrates the original water well into the new pool composition. A continuous grid pattern across the perimeter walls and rear façade creates a unifying envelope, with recessed concrete planes detailed through clay-tile motifs.

Original pasta tile floors and wood doors were preserved and reused, while chukum walls, warm woods, linen, and operable glazing bring softness, ventilation, and material continuity to the interiors. The result is a minimal tropical retreat that balances historic preservation with quiet contemporary architecture.

Merida, Mexico. In progress