Along Mexico’s Baja California coast where the desert, ocean, and sky meet, Campos Studio has completed its latest project in a series of off-the-grid modernist dwellings located in the community of Los Zacatitos. Inspired by the minimalist economy of the hot arid climate, Campos Studio’s buildings explore desert living through simple forms given shape by passive strategies. The work aims to integrate these strategies to the point of being essential, invisible, and indistinguishable from the architecture.
“There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky”
– Victor Hugo
At Zacatitos 05, living occurs on a platform perched on the rocks that dot the beach. Designed to follow the horizon, the platform is a place to experience the smell and sounds of a restless ocean and the expansive sky. Facing east, the platform is oriented towards the sunrise. As the sun rises and becomes relentless one can retreat to an area of the platform that is shaded by the mass of the bedrooms above. This area creates a transition zone between the exposed deck and the interior spaces which bury themselves into the slope, where the earth acts as a heat sink that helps minimize the daily temperature fluctuations.
The sloping site commences with cacti and desert shrub and ends on the rocks and sand that give way to the ocean. The project connects them with a circulation spine that cuts the building in two. The slot allows one to leave behind the desert and arrive at the ocean. As one descends the stairs to the main living area the sky and ocean are separated into vertical and horizontal frames before they are reunited into one complementary expansive element.
