The Water Room (La Habitación del Agua) is Estudio Mero’s proposal for Design House 2024, presented within the framework of Design Week Mexico. The intervention responds to the question: How will we design the future? The studio’s answer focuses on reconnecting with rainwater, making its cycle tangible and creating an experience that celebrates this resource in both collective and intimate dimensions.

As a Mexico City-based firm, Estudio Mero understands that water is the resource that defines urban life—a city that paradoxically faces both intense rainy seasons and chronic supply shortages. The proposal integrates sustainable water management as a central axis for this edition of Design House.

Conventional residential programs rarely include a dedicated space for people to engage directly with rainwater—a place to see, feel, and recognize it. Estudio Mero seeks to shift this paradigm, creating a space where water, beyond its functional use, becomes a visible and felt presence. Open to the public during Mexico City’s rainy season, our pavilion offers an addition to traditional architectural design, inviting visitors to consciously experience the water cycle through various sensory touchpoints.

The design of Aqua Locus draws inspiration from ancient Roman baths, where bathing was a collective ritual and a social event that connected people to the water and to each other. Here, water is the protagonist of a sensory journey that begins with its harvest: over 30,000 liters collected across 45 days. Through purification and sedimentation systems, the rainwater is showcased in its purest state, inviting reflection on its natural cycle.

The pavilion also offers an intimate space where water becomes an element of health and well-being. In this SPA (Salus Per Aquam, Latin for "Health through Water"), users can experience cold showers, pressure showers, a sauna, and an outdoor cold plunge pool, transforming the act of bathing into a ritual. The tub also serves as a poetic canvas; muralist Alexis Samano (Pigmento) intervened in this space with an original poem, featuring aqueous lettering inside and outside the tub. With subtle, organic strokes, the poem flows like water itself, inviting contemplation.

The architectural space is defined by curved walls built with Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB), crafted from soil recovered from a construction site in Valle de Bravo and water from the Valle de Bravo - Amanalco sub-basin. This basin belongs to the Cutzamala River system, the primary water source for western Mexico City. These blocks evoke the profound connection between earth and water, representing the natural cycle that returns water to the ground.

The design was conceived as a dialogue between water and the inhabitant. This symbiotic relationship was the core of our creative process, inviting a rethinking of how we inhabit our spaces and the relationship we establish with water, fostering a deeper awareness of its importance in daily life and its role in the collective.