Em-Estudio has built a holiday home on a steep hillside in Oaxaca, Mexico, from coloured concrete chosen to blend into the rocky mountainside.
Named La Extraviada, the house overlooks Mermejita beach in Mazunte, a small seaside town on southern Mexico's Pacific coast.
Top: an aerial view of La Extraviada. Above: the house hugs the mountainside
Mexico City-based architecture firm Em-Estudio used polished cement mixed with brown pigments for La Extraviada's walls to camouflage the house with its lush natural setting.
"The shape and orientation of the project is determined by the topography of the land, adapting to it and trying to make the house look like it has always been there," said Em-Estudio architect Ivan Esqueda.
"All the materials used were thought of as elements that blend with the mountain, like stones that balance on a hillside," he told Dezeen. Em-Studio framed the staircase with stone walls
La Extraviada is made up of two concrete volumes that are independent of one another but joined by a pathway.
The main volume is accessed through an entrance at the top of the plot, next to a private car park.
The vestibule-patio is designed to keep cool
A staircase, sheltered by exterior walls to trap cool air, leads to a stone vestibule-patio and the house's front door.
On this level, there are dining and living areas, as well as a kitchen, pantry and laundry room featuring interior design by Esqueda's wife, Gala Sánchez-Renero.
A living space with doo...