HOUSE IN ACAPULCO

The proposed house sits in the flat tropical coastal lowlands south of Acapulco. The house is imagined as an overlap of the stepped forms of the Pre-Columbian archeological remnants, the archetype of the Mexican Courtyard house and of Latin-American Modernism. The Acapulco House consists of a stepping outdoor-plaza element that passes through a raised court in a horizontal upper zone. The stepped plaza defines all critical spaces and is exposed throughout as an oversized stair both on the upper and lower surfaces; the exterior stair surfaces are to be clad in a light green stone, and the underside exposed reinforced concrete. The steps are each 90cm wide and allow for various plaza-deck uses. The stair element passes through all areas of the house supporting complete outdoor circulation from level to level. The east elevation is a horizontal cantilevered bedroom and bathroom zone that provides deep shade to terrace areas outside the kitchen and around the swimming pool. The west elevation is characterized by the suspended interior-passage stair connecting the living level with the upper domestic level spaces and an interior rectangular courtyard. Rising just above the deep-shade canopy of the heavily vegetated landscape, the upper surface of the stepped court overlooks the Pacific.