1 Common Ground
Architecture & Interior Design
Inspiration and Collaboration
July 29, 2020
Back in 2003, while working at a boutique design firm, we were requested to design a very unique guest unit on a lagoon for one of the most exclusive Hotels and Resorts chains in the world. A unique and original design that would have a strong sense of place, a design that would display the use of traditional materials, while having a contemporary flare. It needed to provide privacy while having the capability to be in close proximity with other identical units on the lagoon. The project was located in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.
While looking at the lagoon, the image of the reeds coming out from the water sparked an idea: “the floating unit would be partially hidden by reeds. One side of the unit will be blind and the other side would be open, but screened with the traditional Mayan latilla (wood screen)”.
Typical Mayan home in Yucatan Peninsula
The site, view angles, privacy issues, and other limitations shaped the envelope of the building.
Partial site plan study
The guestroom would be “floating over the water”… (well not literally “floating” but “feeling like floating” ), supported by stilts. A strong “anchor stone wall” would balance the slender and light lines of the design. The columns would hold large fire lanterns on top of them… adding to the “jungle” feel, (the gas lanterns were VE’d later).
The first draft model was pretty rough of course!... Before I learned Sketch up, making quick physical models was the best way to communicate the design concept.
It is exciting to see that the original idea was kept along the process, and it was even more exciting to visit and physically walk the spaces that I envisioned in my mind.
2003 Conceptual model
2008 Finished buiding
Collaboration… the key of great design.
Once the project was completed many people claimed authorship of the different parts of the resort … the reality is that no one person owns it 100%, architects, interior designers, landscape architects, engineers, investors, historians, entomologist, geologist, contributed with comments, opinions, information that made possible to achieve a design that had received so many accolades.
by: Laura Baiamonte, AIA, NCARB