Mexican architect Carlos H Matos has completed a concrete house designed to be an "ode to antiquity" and "futurity" in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca.
Known as Casa Monte, the one-bedroom house was completed in 2023 with a rooftop terrace and a 150-square-metre (1,615-square foot) footprint. It is nestled between mountains and the Pacific Ocean and serves as a rental property.
Carlos H Matos has created a retreat in Mexico
"It is equally an homage to the profound transformations that shaped Mexico?s built environment in the 20th century," Matos told Dezeen. "It has many pasts, remote and recent, and a present one still taking shape."
The spaces were designed to prompt residents toward activity and engagement. The shelter serves as a simple and serene counterpoint to from houses with climate-controlled comfort and digital access. It is located on a secluded arid site in Oaxaca
"This way the house becomes deeply personal and intimate, and at the same time universal in the sense that it will have hundreds of users experiencing the house, and being able to incarnate the character, its way of living and rituals," Matos continued.
Rising out of cacti and low shrubbery, the ochre-coloured structure suggests "refuge" in the open landscape, more so than "home." It is located near the Tadao Ando-designed Casa Wabi art institution.
It was made using tinted-concrete bricks
Approached by a winding sandy path, Matos describe...