DSA Development Dwellings / COA arquitectura

© César Béjar Studio

Completed in 2018 among the forested mountain landscape of Tapalpa, Mexico, COA arquitectura nestles the DSA Development dwellings. The intimate stone structure stands isolated from civilization as visitors travel out of Jalisco and take the dirt road leading upward into the woods.

DSA Development Dwellings Technical Information

• Architects^1&2: COA arquitectura
• Construction: Fabrica
• Location: Tapalpa, Jalisco, Mexico
• Topics: Natural Stone, Mexican Houses, Vernacular Architecture
• Area: 667 m²
• Project Year: 2015 – 2018
• Photographs: © César Béjar Studio, © Francisco Gutiérrez

Downhill, you can see between the trees four volumes and some chimneys, two cabins that together form a village.

– COA arquitectura

DSA Development Dwellings Photographs

© César Béjar Studio

© César Béjar Studio

© César Béjar Studio

© César Béjar Studio

Text by the Architects

Pines and some oak trees narrow the views and enclose a few openings in the land. At the entrance of the property, the gate and a small cabin with a warehouse are located. You can see downhill between the trees, four volumes, and some chimneys, two cabins that together form a village.

Stone, concrete, metal, and wood play to merge with the environment; unconcerned, they accept the sun and rain, the mud and time. It is a place for rest, coexistence, and recreation.

In a continuum with vernacular construction, sloping roofs, eaves, mezzanines, small windows, vestibules, and porticoes seek to respond to the same thing, reinterpreting them.

The program is divided into two: the public area and the night area, united by a “bridge” that at the same time narrows the passage and directs the visuals into the forest. As if the trees were exerting some inflection, the volumes rotate subtly, searching for visuals and orientations to the different spaces inside and contrast with a shattered silhouette the vertical framework of the context.

The design team curates its DSA dwellings with a palette of stone, concrete, metal and wood to visually integrate into the environment. The volumes are realized as a reinterpreted continuation of vernacular construction with sloping roofs, eaves, mezzanines, and small punch windows.

The cabins are shelter, seeking to transmit it from the entrance, space narrows to welcome and expands into the living room. Scale changes continue both in the different spaces as well as in the inner path enriching the experience.

Finally, some fireplaces between the trees, an echo of those walls, confirm that the cabins want to engage with the forest and be able to inhabit it by stacking stones.

DSA Development Dwellings Plans

Section Plan

Floor Plan

Dwellings DSA Development Image Gallery

About COA arquitectura

COA arquitectura is a Mexican architecture firm based in Guadalajara. The studio approaches architecture as a craft connected to tradition and works in constant experimentation with materials and construction techniques.
Other works from COA arquitectura 

1. Collaborators: Arq. Diana Quiroz Chávez, Arq. Adriana Osuna Maciel, Arq. Leonardo Jiménez, Arq. Samuel Camacho, Arq. Yael Peñuñuri E., Mtro. Israel González A.
2. Structural engineering: CEROMOTION, Ing. Juan Jesús Aguirre

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