Design firm: Studio Font
Project name: Casa Macahuite
Location: Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico 
Size: 300 square meters In a remote stretch of Oaxaca’s coastline, where isolation is intensified by an extreme landscape shaped by hurricanes and earthquakes yet teeming with life, Studio Font has designed Casa Macahuite, an architecture that appears to rise from the ground like a primordial skeleton, preserving the memory of construction in its most essential form. The residence is organized around an H-shaped layout, composed of two two-storey rectilinear volumes. Each is enclosed laterally by exposed concrete walls and frontally by large, almost imperceptible glazed surfaces. Connecting them is a single-storey horizontal slab spanning 14 metres, which defines the heart of the house while sheltering and framing the outdoor rituals of domestic life. In a gesture of radical synthesis, the concrete structure becomes both finish and furnishing, giving the composition a monumental presence conceived to withstand the force of natural elements. The load-bearing walls extend into the monolithic kitchen counter, while bathroom fixtures and sofa bases emerge throughout the space as compact sculptural blocks. Interrupting the material continuity of the concrete are furnishings and shading systems in rough, knotty wood which, like fragments of fossilized vegetation cast back by the sea, introduce a tactile and visual counterpoint. The result is a house of dramatic, timeless character, capable of establishing a powerful dialogue with the raw and untamed dimension of the surrounding landscape.