Two small mountain cabins in Arteaga, Coahuia, compose the first phase of Madriguera Eco Reserve Stays by S-AR. Set along a west-facing slope, the pair is conceived as calibrated instruments for viewing and inhabiting the terrain: a compact glamping unit, “Cabaña Liebre“, and a more accommodating dwelling, “Cabaña Conejos“. Both rely on a restrained assembly of concrete, steel, wood, and glass to define clear tectonic logics, controlled apertures, and inhabitable thresholds that extend occupation to terraces and roofs.
Madriguera Eco Reserve Stays Technical Information
- Architects: S-AR
- Location: Arteaga, Coahuila, Mexico
- Gross Area: 100 m2 | 1,076 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years: 2020 – 2024
- Photographs: © Recording Architecture
We approached the cabins as precise shelters that frame weather, color, and horizon. The architecture remains pared down so that light, temperature, and the mountain’s daily shifts become the primary content of the stay.
– Cesar Guerrero
Madriguera Eco Reserve Stays Photographs
Siting, Topography, and Visual Field
Placed along the western edge of a gently sloping plot, the cabins act as elevated perches that survey a small valley while taking the forested ridge as a rear backdrop. This lateral siting separates prospect and refuge: the fronts open toward distance and light, the backs anchor against vegetation and slope. The gradient assists both orientation and drainage, allowing terraces to step lightly without deep cuts into the ground.
Both units are tuned to a pale mountain range whose tones shift with low-angle sun at dawn and dusk. Apertures and outdoor platforms are coordinated with this chromatic cycle, treating the view not as scenery but as a temporal register. The Conejos rooftop deck completes the vertical field, transforming the roof into a lookout and making threshold conditions inhabitable on multiple levels. In plan and section, edges become rooms, extending occupancy to the margins.
Dual Typologies: Glamping Scale and Compact Dwelling
Cabaña Liebre takes on tent-like dimensions while formalizing the necessities of a short stay. A continuous perimeter terrace provides an intermediate band for cooking, sitting, and fire use, keeping interior surfaces free of smoke and grit. The plan places a concrete bathroom and storage core within a timber shell, establishing a clear wet-dry gradient that stabilizes the tiny footprint and offers thermal inertia at the center of the envelope.
Cabaña Conejos is organized for variable occupancy. A living area converts to a second sleeping space, and the sequence of kitchen-dining, bedroom, study, balcony, and roof deck distributes activities across gradients of privacy and exposure. Access and terrace zones negotiate the slope while maintaining consistent view orientation. The layout admits both solitary retreats and small group stays without reconfiguring core services, using furniture and sliding partitions rather than permanent subdivision.
Structural Systems and Envelopes
Liebre combines concrete supports with a light steel frame, then encloses the structure with paired timber boards and a thermal layer between. The assembly keeps mass where it is most useful for stability and moisture control while preserving a responsive, insulated shell above. The concrete core consolidates penetrations and utilities, reduces framing complexity around wet zones, and adds a modest heat sink to buffer diurnal swings typical of altitude.
Conejos relies on load-bearing concrete block walls and lightweight concrete slabs with hollow bricks. This massing strategy provides durability and acoustic separation, while a ventilated skin of black-painted timber boards wraps an exterior insulation layer. Inside, natural wood floors temper the tactile and acoustic character, and walls and ceilings finished with cement and black paint compress reflectivity to foreground exterior light. Across both cabins, the palette of concrete, steel, wood, and glass is not decorative but organizational, with each material legible to its role.
Material Language and the Contemporary Mountain Refuge
The cabins adopt a consistent and abstract material vocabulary that resists mimicry of the terrain. Dark timber skins register as distinct figures against the scrub and stone, allowing the landscape’s seasonal changes to read with clarity rather than being camouflaged. Aperture size and interior tonalities are calibrated to heighten perception of the sky’s color shifts, so that interior darkness sharpens the framed horizon and exterior terraces mediate glare and wind.
Refuge is construed less as sealing off weather than as staging a controlled encounter with it. Terraces, balconies, and the 360-degree roof deck extend domestic routines to exposed edges while the insulated envelopes and concentrated concrete elements maintain comfort. The result is a pair of compact shelters whose precision lies in the alignment of structure, envelope, and use with the site’s topography and light, producing calibrated vantage points rather than objects seeking formal prominence.
Madriguera Eco Reserve Stays Plans
Madriguera Eco Reserve Stays Image Gallery
About S-AR
Founded in 2006 and based in Monterrey, Mexico, S-AR is an architectural studio devoted to the development and research of contemporary architecture. Their work focuses on creating thoughtful and innovative solutions for design challenges, often engaging with natural landscapes and blending structure with the environment. S-AR’s projects range from small-scale residential units to public architecture, consistently emphasizing material honesty and conceptual clarity.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Architects in Charge: Cesar Guerrero, Ana Cecilia Garza
- Collaborators: Maria Sevilla, Carlos Morales, Naarahi Rojas
- Client: Private
- Construction Company: Daniel Hernandez
