Living in the desert is an extreme sensory experience that requires breaking free from the usual codes of interpretation adopted in urban environments. Here, the immense spaces seem apparently uniform and unchanging, but in reality they reveal a variety of subtly changing elements that make the desert a unique ecosystem and elusive in its complexity. Winds continually shape its forms but also rain and water, even if not frequent, are able to generate in a few minutes spectacular chromatic, tactile and olfactory changes in the territory, recognizable in the sudden explosion of the blooms of the native flora.

To honour this extraordinary natural balance, architects Rubén Valdez and Yashar Yektajo together with the landscape architects of Polen Arquitectura de Paisaje have built a hotel in Todos Santos on the Pacific coast which takes visitors on an immersive, all-embracing journey through the place.

The compositional language suggests a desire for unfiltered integration between the built work and the landscape: natural materials such as concrete and sand suggest uninterrupted continuity with the land and a rough authenticity of the work.

A series of compact volumes in exposed concrete, in a beige hue that blends into the context, enclose a courtyard with a garden of about 10,000 square metres, in a style typical of the Spanish Jesuit missions of the 18th century and widespread in the area.

Inside, paths on the sand gently lead visitors to discover a sequence of surprising and varied natural spaces, designed with care and respect for the original environment: native species with very low maintenance requirements have been planted to integrate the existing flora, while a water path that crosses the property and culminates in a small oasis enhances the extraordinary variety of the place, encouraging the consolidation of biodiversity.

An amazing landscape that it is nice to imagine exploring barefoot on the sand, to regain a deep connection with the earth, with nature and with what seems to be the most fragile and precarious today.