In the heart of Aldea Zamá, Tulum, Casa Terra stands as a dwelling that breaks away from urban homogeneity, permeating the area intimately and distinctively a zone otherwise marked by a repetitive layout.
Project Name: Casa Terra
Studio Name: ERENTIA
Location: Tulum, Mexico
Year: 2024
Area: 275.89 m2
Team: Alejandra Esteve, Jordi Giner
As a response to the physical context and the historical symbolism of the site, the Mayan worldview becomes the conceptual starting point of the project, where space is experienced through the sacred and the profane two dimensions that converge in an inseparable and essential duality, generating a singular experience of inhabiting.
Casa Terra translates this notion into architectural form: a duality that both encloses and opens; where the tangible coexists in balance with what cannot be seen, yet shapes the very sense of dwelling the intangible. The spatial layout is composed of interconnected volumes that alternate between the social and the private. Gathering areas are fluidly articulated, while resting zones maintain an introspective, enclosed, and protected character.
The house withdraws from the street; yet it is not limited by walls, but instead blurs the boundary between interior and exterior, opening itself to the surrounding landscape. Every element interweaves with its context, dissolving the line between the built and the natural, drawing attention to the highest point. There, a skylight rises an aperture that invites the gaze to the sky, from east to west, evoking light, wind, time, and the divine. This space reclaims the pre-Hispanic experience: the solar cycle, traditional agriculture, and the fusion of light and greenery as indicators of time’s passage and of everyday life.
