The Radical Concrete Confines of Casa TO, Puerto Escondido

Shut-up, it’s simple to miss the architectural oasis usual from concrete, wooden, and metal awaiting behind Casa TO’s half-door threshold. The lodge’s concrete clad exterior is draped in boa scarves of vines, with palms reaching upward and outward, barely contained by the assorted unions of rectilinear and curving brutalist planes that develop into evident with only a few steps again. Even so, the vigorous native vegetation can not totally camouflage the lodge’s promise of structure imagined to incite “a radical sensory expertise upon coming into.”

Designed by architect Ludwig Godefroy and sited in an inland nook of La Punta Zicatela, Puerto Escondido, the 9 suite lodge presents an intimate respite from the festive Oaxacan surf scene weaving throughout the beachside streets. We discovered ourselves grateful of the contemplative refuge supplied to us for a couple of morning hours throughout the current 2023 Mexico Design Honest, indebted to its shaded cool cavern, enthralled by the up to date reticulated interpretation of place and area designed to compel visitors to do nothing however swim, relaxation, and sometimes sip one thing refreshing.

Photograph: Gregory Han

Photograph: Gregory Han

Godefroy’s inside-out strategy invitations gentle and shadow, sky and water, mass and vacancy all into an evocative interaction staged throughout the lodge’s various heights. The cavernous central enclosure is most dramatically framed by a sequence of enormous round concrete gap punches, permitting visitors and the coastal breeze entry throughout its size of water and herringbone brickwork flooring – a span interspersed with low profile furnishings constructed by carpenters from Oaxaca, Puebla, and Guadalajara. The peak of furnishings is simple to hunch into, way more troublesome to come up from (mentally, extra so than bodily, such is their consolation).

Photograph: Gregory Han

Photograph: Gregory Han

The structure is meant to evoke the reticulated sample of two historic initiatives of hydraulic nature reasonably than of hospitality: the sixth century AD Basilica Cistern of Istanbul, and the nineteenth century constructed Hornsey Wooden Reservoir in Finsbury Park, London. Photograph: Gregory Han

The lodge’s concrete mass is interjected by a sundry of home windows, doorways, and different openings partially lined by the coastal area’s aggressive verdant vegetation, inviting passersby and the coastal breeze equal likelihood to make their method into the internal quantity of Casa TO’s Oaxacan temple the place the lodge’s spirit of serene contemplation comes into focus.

Photograph: Gregory Han

Photograph: Gregory Han

Meals and drinks are served on the higher rooftop stage. Photograph: Gregory Han

Tendrils of vines intrude, however privateness is in any other case retained contained in the uncooked concrete confines of Casa TO. Photograph: Gregory Han

The visitor rooms proceed the architectural narrative of contrasts, equally cool and cavernous, inviting the weather on the cusp of its concrete partitions. Backyard Suites are furnished with king dimension beds with a small personal backyard, whereas the higher flooring Terrace Suites are barely bigger and include their very personal out of doors tub with recent water to simply slip into every morning or night time from a king dimension mattress.

Backyard Suite Photograph: Jaime Navarro

Terrace Suite Photograph: Jaime Navarro

Terrace Suite Photograph: Jaime Navarro

What: Casa TO
The place: Brisas de Zicatela, 70934 Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico
How a lot: From $274
Highlights: The lined solarium foyer working parallel alongside a protracted infinity pool framed by six huge round openings evokes journey pictures. Don’t skip out on brunch upstairs.
Design draw: Designed by Mexico Metropolis-based architect Ludwig Godefroy, the lodge’s round opening poolside and foyer are complemented with furnishings constructed by carpenters from Oaxaca, Puebla, and Guadalajara. Japanese architect Tadao Ando’s Casa Wabi, Casa Naila by BAAQ, and Meridiano gallery by architect Tatsuro Miki and Axel Vervoordt are all positioned inside Puerto Escondido’s driving distance perimeter.
E-book it: Casa TO

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Gregory Han is the Managing Editor of Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, mountaineering, tide swimming pools, and street journeys, a collection of his adventures and musings might be discovered at gregoryhan.com.