Located in a small town on top of the Sierra Madre Occidental -a mountain range running through the west of Mexico- near to the town where Juan Rulfo was born and raised and which inspired him to write his novels. The old town is full of red and white painted houses with clay roof tiles and “adobe” walls. It used to be a town with no industry, its only economic incomes were from the tourists of Guadalajara -the closest big city.
In 2020, we were comissioned by a couple to design a very small cabin in the woods where they could get away from the city to spend their weekends in solitude. The site they bought for the cabin’s construction is located on a ravine before a cliff overwiewing at the horizon, the Colima’s Volcano. This topography’s condiotions were key to our project, we wanted to adapt to its slope and get the best views.
We located the cabin on the less sloped part of the ravine and beside a natural rivers that runs off the top of the mountain.
When visiting the site, we discovered it was full of giant stones and we decided to use local stone and concrete as the main materials for the cabin’s base with natural steel details which will help us paint the grey walls with its sepia patina through the years making the house look similar to the site’s rocks.
A wooden gamble roof sits on top of the house, being this roof the one who gives shelter to its inhabitants together with the base. We burned the wooden roof to reduce the cabin’s maintenance due to its difficult access. We think of the cabin as a cave overlooking a valley, a mountain range and a volcano.
