Mexican designer Gloria Cortina teamed with studio Gomez de Tuddo Arquitectos to create this stark white beach house with minimal interiors for art collectors in Cabo.
The two-storey house is located in Mexican resort town Cabo Saint Lucas, in the southern end of the country’s peninsula Baja California. Known for its desert-like setting of sandy dunes and bright blue seas, the region influenced the design of the project, created by Gloria Cortina and architect Mauricio Gomez of Gomez de Tuddo Arquitectos.
Both based in Mexico City, the two collaborated on the house for a couple of art collectors and their contemporary, minimalist pieces are showcased throughout.
The house comprises a rectangular, cantilevering top floor that projects over its base to create shaded outdoor areas and several private balconies above.
“Cabo is incredibly arid,” said Cortina. “The desert comes into the house, so this is not a place for highly artificial design concepts.”
Its symmetrical design is a focal point, and dramatised by the balconies that project eight metres over patios below. One of these faces the sea and is complete with an outdoor living room, while the other faces south.
“It responds to the tropical desert environment by literally stretching and splitting the 1,500-square-metre building’s envelope to create a distinctly Mexican expression of modernist architectural design, using materials and finishes that are rooted in significant cultural references,” the team said.
The north-south axis of the house splits the home in two, and is outdoors, thus resulting in a pair of two-storey volumes that each have their own staircases.
The house was “conceived as a bird, coming down and landing – a form that was very useful, not only externally but in its interiors,” according to the team.
Its off-white, clay plaster exterior reflects the starkness of the landscape and is traditionally used in the region. The brightness also “creates a sense of order which captures and controls light and shade,” according to Cortina, who added that the aim was to create a home that was well integrated to the surroundings.
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