The Nereidas Homes architectural project is situated in the arid landscape of Baja California, near Todos Santos. This development occupies an area of six hundred square meters, distinguished by the presence of sculptural cacti and expansive views encompassing both the Sierra de la Laguna and the Pacific Ocean.
The design of the house is based on the idea of being fragmented into several architectural pieces. This arrangement aims to ensure privacy for each living unit while establishing an intentional and specific visual connection with the natural surroundings. This approach distributes domestic life across the entire terrain, avoiding the creation of a single closed block.
The structure is organized through private rooms and a shared common area, seeking a balance between the feeling of enclosure and openness within the lot. Individual spaces are designed to focus on carefully framed views, while collective areas extend longitudinally, utilizing the vastness of the landscape for shared use.
There are three private units spread across the terrain. Each one functions as a continuous space, where activities such as sleeping, resting, and bathing occur without internal divisions. The curved internal walls open up to three distinct windows, each framing a different section of the landscape and creating varied atmospheres within the same environment. Essential furniture, such as beds, seating, wardrobes, and bathrooms, is integrated into the architectural shell, ensuring that each function maintains its own visual focus, even while being in a unified spatial volume. Access to the roof enhances this vertical experience, strengthening the direct link between the private space, the sky, and the horizon.
The main shared area is defined by two intersecting roofs. This space houses an outdoor fireplace with a double height and a circular cascading pool, offering various settings for socializing, dining, and relaxation. Being completely open, this structure maintains a constant visual and spatial alignment with the desert. The overlapping planes create deep shadows, and the changes in height guide movement without relying on traditional partitions.
The entire building was constructed using pigmented concrete, which serves as both a structural element and a cladding. The rosy tone applied to the material lends warmth to the building, allowing it to reflect changes in luminosity throughout the day and accentuating the contrast with the surrounding vegetation, especially after rain when the landscape takes on a greener hue. Environmental systems were incorporated into the design, making the house completely autonomous (off-grid). Energy is supplied by photovoltaic solar panels, and a thermal solar heater provides hot water. Furthermore, water reuse systems reduce pressure on local resources, and all flora removed during construction was replanted on site, preserving the existing desert ecosystem.
Nereidas Homes presents a way of living in the desert that considers architecture as a built condition intended for permanence. In this sense, the residence approaches the notion of a contemporary ruin: a durable structure that supports life while allowing the climate, time, and landscape to act upon it.
The Treinta y Nueve Árboles house project, designed by Grizzo Studio, is located in the Karilo forest on a richly vegetated plot. Here, sunlight filtering through the canopies of dozens of trees illuminates the ground covered with climbing plants. The main objective of the project was to preserve this natural state, so the house is designed to harmonize with its surroundings, not trying to dominate them, but to integrate and intertwine with the trees.
Thus, the building transforms into an atrium for contemplating nature, guiding visitors into the forest so they can experience its atmosphere. The residential complex offers two ways to explore the forest: panoramic, which passes through the thicket both from inside and outside, and ascending, achieved via glass walkways connecting different levels. These paths allow one to understand the structure of the forest by tracing it from the roots to the treetops.
Since this is a summer retreat house, the experience of staying in the project is realized through two routes. The first runs inside the building: starting from a semi-submerged vestibule, the middle levels lead to the entire program of the house, concluding at a terrace at the level of the tree canopy. The second route invites a walk around the perimeter, first crossing the inner courtyard and the semi-open area with a fireplace at the root level, and then reaching the garden, pool, and veranda of the house.
The choice of materials for the project was made so that they would not attract excessive attention, but rather coexist with nature, allowing vegetation and the passage of time to transform and colonize the structure.
Casa L.A., a project presented by the design team Emedos Projetos, is located in the gated community La Z Residence. This development is situated in the central area of Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic.
The main objective of Casa L.A. is to establish a symbiotic relationship between the physical environment of the land and the architectural construction itself. To achieve this, the project aims to integrate the various social areas that make up the residence internally.
The house project located in Las Rosas features open views of the Guadarrama mountain range. The building's concept is based on a composition of five cylinders, which define the overall geometry and the project's intent for several different reasons.
