Taller Segovia Molina Wraps a Querétaro Family House in Blind Brick Around a Barrel-Vaulted Stair

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This article covers topics related to Residential Building, Landscape Design. In suburban Santiago de Querétaro, Casa Refugio turns a blind brick face to the street and opens inward to fragmented gardens, voids and skylights.

Suburban Querétaro is filling in. Lots are shrinking, neighbors are getting closer, and the classic Mexican suburban house, with its front lawn and picture window, makes less sense every year. Refuge House (Casa Refugio), designed and built by Taller Segovia Molina under lead architect Daniel Segovia Molina, answers that pressure bluntly. On a 250 m² site, the studio stacked 450 m² of family house into three levels and gave the street almost nothing: a pale brick mass, nearly windowless above, lifted over a shaded carport.

The interesting part is what happens once you are inside. The house does not compensate for its closed front with one large garden at the back. Instead it breaks landscape and daylight into many small pieces: a rear court, narrow planted slots, curved light wells, a double-height interior garden and a roof scattered with skylights. A barrel-vaulted concrete stair ties it all together vertically. The result reads less like a fortress and more like a carefully tuned sequence of rooms that borrow light and green from the gaps between walls.

A Blind Brick Face to the Street

Street facade of a gray brick block raised on a slim concrete column, with a passer-by in late light

Street view of the long-format brick block cantilevered above a carport, with a palm and a conifer in hazy light

Pale brick box volume raised over a recessed carport with a slim round column, seen through tree branches on an overcast day

Entrance recess with a curved brick wall beside a tall timber pivot door, under a concrete soffit with downlights

Round concrete column under a cantilevered slab beside a gray brick wall, with a sheer curtain and a flowering shrub

The street elevation is a single gesture: a long-format brick box carried on a deep board-formed concrete lintel and a slim round column, with the entrance and parking pushed back into shadow. The tight coursing of the Roman-format brick produces fine horizontal lines that catch low sun, so the facade has texture without needing openings. It is a confident refusal, and in a densifying neighborhood we think it is the right one.

Arrival is deliberately indirect. A curved brick drum bends your path toward a tall solid oak pivot door, and the concrete soffit overhead compresses the space before the house opens up. Nothing about the entry is grand, which is exactly the point: the social rooms are earned rather than announced.

Gardens Broken into Pieces

Brick-walled courtyard with a slender flowering tree, circular brick paving and concrete block seats under an overcast sky

Top-down view of a vaulted brick passage opening onto a lawn with a circular paved tree bed and concrete blocks

Curved brick garden wall with a leafy shrub in the foreground and two small wall lights on the brick above at dusk

Narrow gravel courtyard between brick walls, with climbing vines and ferns beside a steel-framed glass wall under a pale sky

Sliding window framing a curved brick light well filled with climbing plants and large-leaved foliage under a cloudy sky

Brick piers and curved parapet framing recessed windows with sheer curtains and trailing vines in low afternoon sun

Landscape studio Matorral distributes greenery across the plan rather than concentrating it. The main rear court is enclosed by brick, with a multi-stem tree set in a circle of radially laid paving and concrete blocks that double as seats. Seen from above, the vaulted passage spilling onto this lawn makes the garden feel like an outdoor room with its own geometry.

Elsewhere, the gardens get narrow and vertical. Gravel slots between brick walls hold ferns and climbing vines; curved light wells fill with large-leaved foliage; planted bays sit beside the bedrooms. Each room gets its own fragment of green, which is a smarter use of a 250 m² lot than any single lawn could be.

The Barrel-Vaulted Stair as Spine

Narrow stair of floating timber treads between board-marked concrete walls, with slatted light falling across the surfaces

Narrow concrete stairwell with timber treads rising to a barrel-vaulted opening that glows with bright daylight and a brick wall beyond

Board-formed concrete stairwell with oak treads rising toward an arched opening and pale brick wall under overcast sky

Narrow concrete stair passage with a seated figure silhouetted in the arched opening above, dark stone floor below

Figure standing at the top of a timber stair under a concrete barrel vault, beside a long built-in wooden desk

The stair is the strongest piece of architecture in the house. Floating oak treads climb between board-formed concrete walls, and the shaft is capped by a barrel vault that filters daylight down the full height. Slatted light moves across the concrete through the day, so the most utilitarian space in the house becomes the one with the most atmosphere.

It also does organizational work. Because it is the main circulation axis, every trip between floors passes through the same luminous, compressed volume, which keeps the three levels connected visually and acoustically. The arched opening at the top, framing a figure or a brick wall against the sky, is the kind of moment that photographs well and also feels good to live with.

Working Toward the Void

Double-height window wall with a built-in timber desk and chairs facing a gravel courtyard of ferns and climbing vines

Built-in oak desk and wooden chairs facing a glazed brick courtyard with climbing vines and a slender tree in daylight

Long timber table running beside a glazed wall facing a brick light well with climbing vines, concrete wall at right

Built-in oak desks run along glazed walls that face courts and light wells rather than the street. On the first floor, the family study sits beside a double-height interior garden; on the upper level, a work area looks into the same void. Work happens facing vines and brick, not neighbors.

This is where the inward strategy pays off most clearly. The glazing can be generous because privacy is already handled by the perimeter walls, so these rooms feel open even though the house as a whole is sealed.

Oak, Curtains and Domestic Calm

Dining room with a steel-legged table and timber chairs, a woman standing at sheer curtains and oak shelving on the right

Oak built-in cabinet with open shelves and a recessed television, a vase of dried stems and a candle, beside sheer curtains

Oak storage wall and low timber cabinet with a vase of dried grass, facing a pale brick wall in soft light

Interior corner of board-marked concrete and slim brick with a lit candle niche, a bamboo chair and a wooden stool

Child's room with a canopied cot and oak steps rising to a window onto a curved brick courtyard with ferns

The interior palette is short: oak millwork, board-marked concrete, slim brick, dark stone floors and marble. Storage walls absorb televisions and clutter, and sheer curtains replace hard partitions at the edges of rooms facing the garden. The curtains are a small decision with a big effect; they let the ground floor shift between open and screened without locking the plan into a fixed configuration.

The details stay modest. A candle niche cut into a concrete and brick corner, oak steps rising to a window in a child's room, a canopied cot looking onto a curved fern court. The house is built for a family that will change, and the restraint leaves room for that.

Bedrooms Around a Concrete Drum

Bedroom with a rough curved concrete column, oak headboard unit and linen curtain beside a window seat in dim daylight

Curved concrete bathroom with a freestanding tub, round skylight, rain showerhead and sheer curtain along dark stone flooring

On the top floor, the master bedroom wraps around a curved exposed-concrete volume containing the bathroom. Inside the drum, a freestanding tub sits beneath a round skylight, and a sheer curtain softens the rough concrete. From the bedroom, the same volume reads as a heavy curved column beside an oak headboard unit.

Putting the bathroom in a sculptural object rather than a back-of-house box is a familiar move, but here it earns its place: the curve frees up corners of the bedroom and gives the most private room in the house its own source of overhead light.

Light Arriving from Above

Rooftop view of a tapered brick chimney beside square brick plinths with glass caps, under a hazy cloudy sky

Rooftop view of glazed skylights on brick plinths beside a concrete barrel vault, casting long shadows in warm light

With the street facade blind, the roof becomes the real elevation. Glass-capped skylights on brick plinths, a tapered brick chimney and the curve of the stair vault populate the terrace, each one corresponding to a room or void below. It is a clear diagram made visible: daylight is pulled down through the section instead of across from the street.

Plans and Drawings

Ground level floor plan drawing showing a car court, stairs, kitchen islands, dining area and planted garden at the rear

Upper floor plan drawing showing three arched bedroom bays with bathrooms, a central stair and a planted terrace at the front

Second level floor plan drawing showing an arched loggia, a curved wall, a central stair and service cores within thick perimeter walls

Roof level plan drawing showing a gridded terrace with five square skylights, a round opening and a rectangular pool

Cross section drawing of a four-storey volume with two long diagonal stair flights rising through a central void, with small figures on the landings

Longitudinal section drawing showing stacked rooms, an arched stair shaft, planted courtyards and a walking figure on the lower terrace

The plans show how disciplined the layout is. The ground floor moves from car court to kitchen and dining to the rear garden in one line. The upper floor lines up three arched bedroom bays, each with its own bathroom, around the central stair. The second level is held inside thick perimeter walls with an arched loggia and the curved bathroom wall, and the roof plan lays out a gridded terrace with square skylights, a round opening and a pool.

The sections make the argument most clearly: the long stair flights rise through a central void, while planted courtyards and light shafts cut down between stacked rooms. Read together, the drawings confirm that the house's comfort comes from section rather than from view.

Why This Project Matters

Mexican suburbs are densifying faster than their housing types are adapting. Refuge House offers a working model for a tight lot: close the street side, keep the outdoor space but split it into many small courts, and use the section, through skylights, voids and a vaulted stair, to bring light deep into the plan. None of these moves is new on its own, but combining them this consistently on 250 m² is instructive.

It also shows the value of a studio building its own work. Taller Segovia Molina acted as general contractor, and the precision of the brick coursing, the board-formed concrete and the oak joinery reflects that control. The house is not trying to impress the street. It is trying to make daily family life calm and connected, and in that it succeeds.

Refuge House (Casa Refugio) by Taller Segovia Molina. Location: Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico. Area: 450 m². Year: 2026. Photography: Zaickz Moz, César Belio.

About the Studio

Taller Segovia Molina

Official website of Taller Segovia Molina, one of the studios behind this project.

arqa.com

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