Paradero Todos Santos – Todos Santos, Mexico
Title
Paradero Todos Santos – Todos Santos, Mexico
https://www.instagram.com/rubenvaldezpractice/?hl=en
Designed by
Rubén Valdez + Yashar Yektajo
Image Credit
© Rafael Gamo
Project Description
Project description provided by Rubén Valdez + Yashar Yektajo - The Paradero hotel is shaped by the landscape of the South Baja California Desert. It both encloses and
opens up to its surroundings through a sheltered central garden and carefully articulated views out over
the desert. The landscape and its ecosystem defines the articulation of the space and is a constant frame
of reference.
Comprising a series of compact volumes enclosing a central courtyard, the hotel reinterprets the typology
of 18th century California Mission architecture built by Spanish Jesuits and Franciscan monks. Following
the spatial logic of the monastery, the hotel employs a balance between individual and collective life. Each
guest is given their own secluded and self-contained suite with the rest of the site given over to spaces for
communal gathering.
Central to the project is an embracing of the surrounding landscape, rather than a reliance on overt luxury.
All guest facilities are grouped around the central garden and meals and check-ins take place in the open
air. Elsewhere, an elevated swimming pool with a half-moon deck faces out onto the landscape of cactus
scrub and mountains. The structure emerges from the landscape and is constantly in dialogue with it.
Columns enter directly into bare earth floors and plant life is left to grow freely. Paths meander and at
times the dividing line between the site and the desert is unclear.
Reached some of those paths running through the garden, each suite is composed so that its scale and
form reveal little of what lies beyond. Inside, a carefully organised sequence of interior and exterior spaces
dissolve the limits between the suites and the desert. Each room has its own uninterrupted view of the
landscape, creating a direct and personal interaction between guests and their surroundings. The careful contraction and expansion of space modulates the play of light and shadow throughout the hotel. Baffled
entrances create a diffused glow of sunlight that spreads gently around corners while moments of
alternating shade and exposure are used to define exterior areas.
The hotel is constructed with locally sourced beige concrete and accentuated with custom-made “tornillo”
wood detailing, iron metalwork and handwoven textiles. All concrete was mixed directly on site and cast
by hand using simple timber formwork, giving the finish a rough tactility and unique character. The
carefully calibrated configuration of each building affords passive temperature regulation throughout the
year.
Constructing Paradero was an exercise in expanding and preserving the surrounding desert ecosystem,
rather than extracting from it. As it is situated on former intensive agricultural land, the hotel marked an
opportunity for reclaiming and restoring the natural desert ecosystem through the planting of a low water
xerophyte garden. The act of construction became a process of positive restoration.
