Los Zacatitos

Last crawled date: 1 year, 6 months ago

This house was conceived as a desert retreat in a remote part of Baja California Sur at Los Zacatitos, Mexico. The project's four detached buildings and their courtyards are loosely arranged around the contour of a natural bowl on the 4-acre sie, placed to catch prevailing breezes, allow once-yearly arroyos to flow, and incorporate granit outcrops and ancient cacti into the scheme. Views to an adjoining wildlife reserve and nearby mountains to the southwest orient the project; a panorama that is revealed from the principal villa's rooftop. Beneath this sheltering roof is a room to congregate for eating and recreation that surveys an open-air swiming pool in the bowl below. Two smaller villas with sleeping accommodation flank either side, each surrounding cooling courtyard gardens irrigated by the grey water and planted with indigineous flora. Covered porches, steps, paths and a bridge join the courtyards to the buildings, articulating and extending the inhabited space. In this off-grid project, a passive heating/cooling strategy was pursued, adapting shady outdoor courts traditional in Baja to a more self-consciously modern green building form. A steel and reinforced concrete panel structure with large overhangs was used to shade the slabs and provide the built envelope with a protected thermal mass to mitigate the heat.