And then there’s the sea
At the end of Baja California, there is a getaway with a new dialogue between inside and outside
A statement of intent, made by one of the leading Mexican design firms, Dellekamp Arquitectos, on a slope amidst the dunes, facing the ocean at the southern tip of Baja California. A striking location for a simultaneously forceful and respectful, visible and sustainable work of architecture. For Derek Dellekamp and Jachen Schleich, its designers, this house is «a refuge that copes with an arid climate: high temperatures, dry winds, local vegetation»: a vacation getaway that becomes part of the landscape.
Four pavilions of different sizes and functions around a courtyard, standing on four platforms in rammed earth, with a marvelous gray-ochre desert hue. An age-old construction technique in tune with a sustainable vision, deployed together with wood, also in the structural system, to grant compact solidity to the sculptural sequence of partitions that support the roofs and set the boundaries of the interiors. These wings can be opened, in some cases, to special views of the swimming pool and the sea. The landscape is shaped with greenery, rocky pathways, corridors, and the textural presence of the four pavilions placed at different heights, depending on the functions of their spaces. The “social” core of the house is the last of the four volumes, towards which the others visually converge.
This space contains a large, dark-colored kitchen, a dining room and the living area. A system of mobile glass panels erases the walls parallel to the coast, extending the space towards the pool and the horizon. The slope of the roof pitches triggers a natural flow of fresh air, harnessing and controlling the dry wind and offering shade. A project of rare elegance, which combines absolute modernity with respect for tradition.
«My ancestors came here from Burma in the 1300s. Many were important diplomats.Their curiosity about the world has been passed down from father to son»