In Mexico’s Punta Mita, find Brandílera House, a coastal resort designed by Mexico-based architecture firm Manuel Cervantes Estudio in collaboration with the client, California designer James Perse.

Across 3,600sqm, a series of independent low pavilions create nine suites, communal social spaces, pools and spa around a central garden. The volumes are interconnected in a ‘choreography of walls, colonnades, pavements, and vegetation’, gently interweaving each structure with the natural flora and unique existing topography of the site. This was one of they key focusses for the development, aiming to create a continuous connection with the exterior environment. The concrete pavilions accommodate floor-to-ceiling framed views of the sea in various points of the complex, itself nestled within the site vegetation, that creates a visual harmony between the sky, ocean and greenery. For architect Cevantes, the residual space at Brandílera is as important as the built mass.

By designing the complex as ‘fragmented’, the distribution allows for the idea of blending the built environment into its natural context, furthermore utilising the neutral construction material of concrete and the natural warmth of timber.

For Cevantes, climate, environment and context is integral to establishing the foundation of a site. He notes, ‘It’s simply the landscape informing the architectural elements that you have around you.’ Whereas some may define it minimalistic and simple, he concludes the approach as common sense.

As a luxury resort, the property exudes a sense of home, where sunken communal lounges, an open-counter kitchen space and an infinity pool enveloped in natural landscaping, create comforting and dynamic encounters on the site. For the architect, the experience of a site is key, emphasising the importance of how one relates to a place. 

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Text: Joanna Kawecki
Images: As credited © César Béjar Studio