César Béjar is best known for capturing the work of leading Mexican architects, including Co-lab Design Office and HW Studio Arquitectos on estliving.com. But beyond his photography, César is also a trained architect with a growing portfolio of architectural works. By seamlessly blending the two artistic pursuits, he believes each inspires and enriches the other. “Images create architecture, and architecture creates images.” César makes his architectural debut on estliving.com with Casa Los Tigres, a house by the beach that exemplifies Mexico’s unique biophilic design language, created in collaboration with architect Fernando Sánchez.
César and Fernando have specified locally-sourced, organic materials such as stained tropical wood and hand-made tiles.
Sliding doors run the length of the space, ensuring the open kitchen-dining-living area gracefully transition between indoors and outdoors.
Tall, angled ceilings create a sense of openness.
Casa Los Tigres is located in Nuevo Vallarta, a small beach town on the west coast of Mexico. For one half of the year, the climate here is pleasantly warm, negating the use of air conditioning and allowing buildings to stay open to the outdoors. During the other half of the year, when the temperatures are higher but so is the humidity, the landscape transforms as the vegetation flourishes. This climate informed César and Fernando’s decision to incorporate an even ratio of indoor and outdoor spaces, with some gracefully transitioning between the two realms. Throughout, the garden has been embraced with the wet season in mind.
In addition to responding to the climate, César and Fernando have also integrated architectural features typical of the region, one being fired-clay roofs and floors. This naturally-textured material is joined by other materials of the same nature, including hand-made bricks and tiles, and stained tropical wood, all of which have been sourced locally. “We didn’t seek shiny finishes – instead, we were interested in working with local, organic materials,” César says.
César and Fernando approached the ground floor layout as a ‘U’ shape, with an open living-dining-kitchen area to the left, which then flows into a bathroom and bedroom in the right corner and an indoor-outdoor sitting area in the bottom right corner. On the right side, up a flight of stairs, are two additional bedrooms, each with its own balcony. A spacious outdoor entertaining area is in the centre of the ‘U’.
One side of the house, the side that faces the street, is simple and conceals most of what goes on inside, while the other side is made up of a series of rounded columns and windows, allowing more of a connection to the garden. “The rounding of the walls and the cylindrical columns simulate elements washed up by the sea, accentuating the plasticity of the beach house,” César reflects.
Being located at the back of the site, protected from the street, the ground-floor bedroom fully embraces the surrounding garden through large windows.
Due to Nuevo Vallarta’s tropical climate, careful attention was paid to the outdoor spaces.
The rear facade of the house comprises a series of rounded columns and windows.
