alejandro d'acosta perches 'casa elias' on a hilltop in mexico

conceived as the ‘prelude to a project to come’, ‘casa elías’ has been designed by architect alejandro d’acosta as a temporary cabin with a simple program. located in valle de guadalupe, in baja california, mexico, the residence is sited at the top of a hill, overlooking the undulating terrain below. constructed from recycled building elements, the structure — photographed here by onnis luque — serves as a dwelling for the client to live in until a more permanent home is built.

image © onnis luque (also main image)

however, the project also allows the client to live with the site and its context before deciding on the construction of anything more permanent. designed by alejandro d’acosta as a ‘station to observe and investigate landscape’, the project has been elevated above the ground, leaving the majority of the land below in tact for future development. the cabin is made from old classrooms, which have been connected at a 90 degree angle with an outdoor terrace between them.

image © onnis luque

as one of the classrooms has been split in half, there were no walls facing the terrace. consequently, the architect repurposed old doors and windows to create two new façades that fit together like a puzzle. some of the doors and windows protrude above the roofline, providing the terrace with shade from the sun that makes it habitable. read more about the project in the words of the architect below.

image © onnis luque

casa elías is the prelude to a project to come. a temporary cabin with a simple program: to house the owners and developers of the future project since they are not originally from the state. but above all it fulfills an extra-function by way of a decree that no one asked for: to intimately and inevitably relate the developers to the site and its context, to be more than a house, a station to observe and investigate landscape.

image © onnis luque

valle de guadalupe, in baja california, is the area of the most real estate speculation in the state, and architecture, even if it is temporary, has the capacity to give answers and consciously alleviate that voracious inertia. it is architecture to understand a site, to give perspective; and landing on the ground correctly is essential to such goals. the highest point of one of the three hills that make the project area was chosen and to make an elevated structure on stilts to grant breadth to the views, in addition to leaving the land almost intact so as not to intervene as an obstacle in future plans.

image © onnis luque

being a temporary house, it was necessary to design a project that made sense from its functionality, but more importantly, from its symbolic context. a house with an old classroom of the same origin as the mobile homes was built. assembled and prefabricated structures. the classrooms are made up of two sections equivalent to a mobile home, which to be transported must be separated into two parts and then reassembled on site.

on this occasion the sections were not joined again in parallel but at a ninety-degree angle so that each one had its own orientation and generated a terrace of contemplation between the two bodies. by nature, one of the faces of each section is an open core, it does not have a wall since it is willing to match an equal structure and generate a clear space without internal walls.

these wall less faces, exposed by the angular opening, were covered with a batch of second-use doors and windows, also from united states. some vertically, others horizontally, like puzzles that take shape in juxtaposition, without cutting any, even protruding from the level of the rooms. those old windows and doors that rise above the ceiling are, due to their orientation, the shade that makes the terrace habitable, the shelter from the sun that makes architecture dynamic.