ARCHETONIC Wraps a Roma Suite Building in Operable Green Fins Beside a Mature Street Tree

Colima is one of the busiest streets in Roma. It is lined with shops, restaurants, bars and parks, and the sidewalk stays active long after dark. ARCHETONIC, led by Jacobo Micha Mizrahi, Alan Micha Balas and Jaime Micha Balas, placed ARX here: 3,750 m² of suites for visitors, completed in 2021. The obvious move on a street like this would be a sealed, polished front that keeps the noise out. ARCHETONIC built something more porous. Its facade moves, it lets you see in, and it is organized around a large existing tree on the sidewalk.

What interests us most is how consistent the building is. The architects named two premises, material quality and versatility, and they hold both from the street to the room. The building is two volumes split by central courtyards. Exposed concrete is cast with several formwork finishes, a handcrafted local clay brick veneer warms the interiors, and an oak-lined lobby folds like origami. None of these is a showpiece on its own. Together they make a short-stay building that feels permanent rather than disposable, which is rare for the type.

A Facade That Defers to a Tree

The street front is a field of dark metal panels and angled fins. The large tree in front of it does as much design work as the architects. In daylight its shadows break the dark surface into a moving pattern, so the building reads as background to the tree. At night the logic reverses. The lit ground floor and the green faces of the fins show through the branches, and the facade becomes a lantern behind the canopy.

Many new buildings in Roma treat street trees as obstacles to clear or frame. ARX uses its tree as a free filter for light, privacy and scale. From the sidewalk you rarely see the whole elevation at once, and that is a gentler way to add a multi-storey building to a street of older fabric.

Operable Fins with a Green Inside Face

The moving metal elements are dark on the outside and painted green on their inner faces. That small decision pays off. When the fins are open, the green continues the foliage outside into the room. When they are closed, they give the guest privacy without the dead blankness of a blackout blind. From the street, the facade changes with how people are using the rooms, and this is the versatility the architects say they were after.

Inside the suites, the balcony is where you feel this most. A sliding glass wall, a cable railing and a green panel turn a thin balcony into a soft edge between the room and the street. In the bedroom, a brick-slip headboard wall and a glass door open toward the leaves, so even a short stay keeps you in contact with the neighborhood.

An Origami Lobby in Oak and Red Steel

The lobby is where ARCHETONIC allows itself the most expression, and it gets the balance right. A wall of triangular oak panels folds up into the ceiling, with warm concealed light running along the seams. The faceted surface wraps the reception desk too, so desk, wall and ceiling read as one continuous piece of joinery.

The red steel stair cuts through all that warm timber, and it is sculptural without being precious. Against the oak and slate it works as a wayfinding device. You know where to go before anyone at the desk tells you.

The Threshold Runs All the Way to the Sidewalk

The lobby is not tucked behind a vestibule. It extends out to the main facade, so the timber ceiling is visible from the street through the glazing, and the street tree is visible from inside the entry passage. A red bicycle parked behind the glowing window does more to signal hospitality than any sign could.

The seating area between the board-formed concrete columns is quiet and domestic. Its cream chairs, coat stand and textured wall panel make it feel closer to a large living room than to a hotel lounge. That is the right register for visitor suites in a residential neighborhood.

Courtyards That Do the Environmental Work

The central courtyards between the two volumes are the building's main environmental device. Every unit gets daylight and cross ventilation from them, which matters on a deep Roma lot where windows on the side walls are rarely possible. The courtyards are also furnished as places to stay, with potted ferns and woven chairs, rather than left as leftover shafts.

The materials change in tone here. Stacked terracotta slats catch the afternoon sun, ribbed concrete walls rise toward angled reflective glazing, and narrow board-formed passages open onto paved patios. You move from compression to release several times between the street and your room, and that sequence gives a modest building a sense of depth.

A Circulation Core That Works as a Light Well

The vertical circulation sits at the core, and ARCHETONIC treats it as a shared outdoor room rather than a fire stair. Black steel flights with mesh guards zigzag up a board-marked concrete wall, and the view up the light well ends in open sky. The board-formed elevator shaft changes color from level to level, which gives each floor its own identity with very little effort.

At dusk, warm wall lamps turn the stair into the building's social spine. This is the moment where the architects' stated goal of a core that links interior and exterior space for recreation and coexistence becomes something you can actually see.

Concrete and Clay, Kept Basic on Purpose

The architects call the finishes basic and partly local, and we take that as a compliment. The concrete appears in several versions: smooth with butt joints, board-formed and ribbed. The difference between them gives the walls texture without any added cladding. The handcrafted clay brick veneer runs along the corridors in vertical slips, lit by linear strips, and brings a craft quality that cast concrete cannot.

The corridors could easily have been the weakest part of a suite building, but here they are calm and specific. Each one ends at a framed portrait of a bulldog. The joke takes some of the seriousness out of all that raw material and shows that the building does not take itself too seriously.

Plans and Drawings

The plans show how disciplined the building is. A central lift core anchors every level. The upper floors hold mirrored apartments arranged along a corridor, and the roof becomes a furnished terrace with dining tables and lounge seating. The ground floor balances the entry lobbies against parking bays and a gridded terrace, and the section shows the parking pushed below grade, with the tree drawn at the street edge.

The street elevation may be the most telling drawing. It sets the angled-panel facade between an arched older building and a taller block. ARX is not trying to match either neighbor. It mediates between them, using the tree and the operable fins to take the edge off the jump in scale.

Why This Project Matters

Short-stay housing is reshaping neighborhoods like Roma, and most of it is built cheaply and quickly, with little interest in the street it occupies. ARX shows a better model. It gives back daylight, privacy and outdoor space to every unit through its courtyards, and it gives the sidewalk a facade that changes with use and respects an existing tree instead of competing with it.

The broader lesson is about restraint and consistency. ARCHETONIC works with a short palette of concrete, local clay brick, oak and painted steel, and applies it with care from the street to the room. The result reads as one integrated piece rather than a facade attached to a floor plate. That is the kind of material discipline you can carry into any dense urban infill project, whatever the program.

ARX Colima Building by ARCHETONIC (Jacobo Micha Mizrahi, Alan Micha Balas, Jaime Micha Balas), Ciudad de México, Mexico. Area: 3,750 m². Year: 2021. Photography: Onnis Luque, Arturo Chavez.

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