Located at 800 m (2 624 ft.) above sea level, in front ot the Sea of Cortez. Big Rock is on top of the foothills of Laguna Hills at the East Cape in Baja California Peninsula. The site is a twenty minute away off the grid [9 km] from the nearest town and is accessed by a dirt road. Part of trail that goes along the East Cape coast. the location of the plot it brings live to the house. The aim was to embrace the site, the granite huge rocks and be part of them as main architectural element. Landscape element. So we define the boundaries within this rocks and the natural survey. The rest came with the solar studies to define the right location for each program, view and scale. The visibility to the south of the bay it can’t get better than this location; the biggest rock define our base to locate the master bedroom to eastern horizon; and to the south, the main building that holds the public area is terraced to the ocean and mountain view to the west.
The design of the house was influenced by the inherent building in desert areas, concerns of environmental impact and cultural sensitivity, and careful observation of local materials, climate and landscape. The architecture is both timeless and contemporary. The buildings are constructed primarily of earth, in the tradition of rammed earth the main living areas and with brick the garage and patio. the walls have been introduced to let in natural light and to visually connect with the surrounding landscape. Rammed earth was quarried locally and Rammed on site providing us a very low carbon foot print construction using with what you can find in the desert. Sand and soils mixed with some cement. The project was conceived to be part of the environment with low impact and to be projected with solar passive design using the walls as main insulation factor and cross ventilation to cool the interiors. The core of the house is a courtyard that provides us a micro weather condition cooling down the place with sea breeze flow and the use of lattices in the walls that allow this natural flow.
