Barrio Metalico is a small community of nine freestanding houses set within the industrial and residential neighborhood of Millville, east of downtown Tucson, Arizona. Initially conceived as a speculative project to enhance the neighborhood in anticipation of the adjacent 51 unit conversion of a 1923 Ice and Cold Storage the Metalico homes quickly took on their own personality and feel.
The conceptual approach for this project was to not shy away from its mixed industrial environment but rather, to embrace it. The exterior skin of each Metalico unit is corrugated metal with a galvalume finish. An existing adobe structure that once provided housing for factory workers in the early 1900s has been adaptively reused as perimeter site walls along with distressed wood and corrugated metal salvaged from a demolished building on a neighboring site. Rainwater harvesting with metal culvert tanks and super-insulated wall systems round out this award winning modern infill village.
