Del Desierto Boutique Hotel will be a destination located in Valle de Guadalupe, in Baja California, Mexico.  In a 50 m x 100 m plot, the program is displayed in a way that organizes the ensemble from the public to the private.  It starts with the access route and the parking lot and ends with the building.  There is an area of villages or rooms placed in the back of the terrain with the views overlooking the open Valley.

Three basic elements are proposed to shape the project:  walls, pavilions and walkways.  A series of large walls are placed in a transversal way to the terrain with the intention of creating patios that will give privacy and scale to the areas.  They divide the parking lot from the central patio and the first pavilions (access, front desk and services; restaurant and wine cellar). Then they divide the main patio from the patio of the rooms and the second pavilions (spa and villas).  The walkways connect these series of pavilions (containing the roofed area “closed” from the complex).  The idea is to have an open use for the public (restaurant, wine cellar and spa) while the villas are more private but still connected to the complex so that the guests may have access to all the facilities.  The villas have smaller walls beneath them that provide them privacy from each other generating small private patios for each villa.  The idea is that the guest may enjoy experiences inside and outside.  The design of the villas and its annexed patio is developed under this premise.  

The walkways are accompanied in some parts with pergolas to provide shade or lattices for privacy.  They help to frame sequences of the surrounding landscape while the user walks its way.  

The pavilions are arranged in relation to the walls, taking advantage of the natural slope of the terrain so no unnecessary excavations or soil movements have to be made. The pavements act as basements emerging from the ground or as bridges supported every so often on the terrain.  

At last, a vertical element completes the complex: a water tower.  This tower originated basically from two ideas: first, to have a tank that can be filled with water by pipes; the second, make the tower itself  produce water by capturing the humidity of the upper air.  The purpose is that the complex may become self-sufficient in the generation of this resource.   

The complex leaves some lateral corridors lengthwise on both sides of the terrain.  The intention is to have access for cleaning all the pavilions and have access for maintenance and suppliers, so they don’t have to cross  through the main areas.  The bathrooms of the villas will be dry toilets or septic tanks with sporadic maintenance.   

For the building of this project, a mix of systems and materials that enriches its identity have been proposed.  Metallic structures and elements in steel, like beams, columns, framing and the covering of the water tank.  Earthen walls give order to the complex areas creating big patios between buildings (some of these may be built over a basement of concrete because of its height).  Floors of polished concrete or pasta tiles.  Stone walls for the observatory and the fireplace (the observatory is a mound coming out from the ground while the fireplace is a crater dug out from the terrain).  Walls of piled up wooden timbers to make the enclosures of the metallic structures, giving a rich texture for the sight and the touch.  Wooden beams support the roofs beside the main structures.  Wooden lattices and pergolas will be made with the remainder of the formwork used to build the concrete walls and the basements.  

All these materials keep relation with the arid landscape of Valle de Guadalupe and can be easily obtained locally.  That’s why they are proposed.  The idea is to connect the building with the landscape through the tones and textures that will remain in the imaginary of the site, at the same time that we use local and accessible resources with viability to be built by local construction workers.

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Credits:

Project: Del Desierto Boutique Hotel

Architecture: S-AR

Website: www.s-ar.mx

Location: Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California, Mexico.

Architects in charge: Cesar Guerrero, Ana Cecilia Garza.

Collaborators: Carlos Morales, Kevin Morán.

Programe: Boutique Hotel

Client: Private

Project year: 2020-21 

Construction year: 2022-2023