Rafael Pardo crea los altísimos apartamentos Zoncuantla con hormigón pigmentado

Architect Rafael Pardo has completed a towering apartment block in Veracruz, Mexico, using concrete pigmented with minerals from the site.

The six-storey building on a steep slope in Coatepec, a municipality of Veracruz with rolling hills and mesophilic forest, contains four apartments.

With over 860 square meters to build on, Pardo decided to conserve more than 50 per cent of the land and build the apartments vertically on the site.

"There was a concern to have the smallest footprint possible in its land and leave more green area," he told Dezeen.

Alongside the apartments, the project included the planting of 31 trees and roughly eight plants per square metre.

"The topography of the land led us to provide this structural solution, but also to have less impact on the land and for all the apartments to have views of the landscape," Parda continued.

"Rainwater also infiltrates more into the ground and helps us maintain the ecosystem of the forest area that surrounds us."

The 470-square-metre block is wrapped in board-form con