Pachuca 165

Pachuca 165 is the careful renovation of a functionalist 1960s apartment building in Condesa, Mexico City, led by architects Alejandro Cabrales and Sofia Betancour. The original structure had suffered after years of zero maintenance, leaving its four apartments and rooftop empty, without working electricity or water and with practically no finishes or millwork remaining. Rather than erase that history, the project restores what was sound and reimagines what was lost.

The renovation respects the original building configuration while proposing a new facade built on rhythmic repetition and the alignment of windows of differing sizes. The interior layout was reworked to introduce balconies, opening the apartments toward light and air in a way the rigid functionalist plan did not allow. The building recovers its original wooden floors and rounded columns, and a few curved details are added to bring a contemporary sensibility to the historic frame.

For the facade, the architects chose restraint. The original painted finish is covered with Chukum, a natural product from the Yucatán Peninsula that lends a polished yet organic surface to the walls. The material ties this Mexico City project to a wider tradition of regional craft, giving the elevation a tactile depth that flat paint could never achieve.

Renovating Functionalist Housing

Reworking mid-century apartment buildings is one of the more demanding tasks in residential architecture. The challenge is balance: keeping the structural logic and proportions that give a functionalist building its character while bringing services, daylight, and comfort up to the expectations of contemporary living. Existing slabs, columns, and openings set firm limits, so much of the design work happens within constraints rather than on a blank site. Adaptive reuse of this kind also keeps embodied material in place, an increasingly valued approach in dense urban districts.

Condesa is among the most recognizable neighborhoods in Mexico City, known for its tree-lined streets and a concentration of early modern and Art Deco housing. Projects like this one show how a sensitive update can return a neglected building to active life while honoring the language of its original architects. Pachuca 165 reads as a quiet argument for repair over replacement, and for letting an old structure speak with a slightly newer voice.