Mar Adentro Hotel in Mexico by Miguel Angel Aragones.

Mexico City-based architecture practice Taller Aragone, led by Miguel Angel Aragones, has designed a sublime 205-room hotel set on the edge of the Sea of Cortez on the outer rim of Baja California Sur. The eight-acre resort is an all-white vision surrounded by water canals, saltwater swimming pools, private cinema, and several wellness studios.

Built by the skilled hands of local artisans, Mar Adentro forms part of the Mexican desert where physically and psychologically, water is the most precious natural resource. An architecture of sumptuous austerity boasts features that coexist harmoniously with nature. Designed on a human scale, this resort privileges two elements above all else: the horizon and the ocean.

“The first time I visited this property and took in the desert and the diaphanous, clear water running along a horizontal line in the background, I felt the enormous drive of water under a scorching sun. This piece of land, located in the middle of a coastline dotted with ‘All Inclusives’ would have to be transformed into a box that contained its own sea –practically its own air– given the happy circumstance that the universe had created a desert joined to the sea along a horizontal line. It was the purest, most minimalist landscape a horizon could have drawn. On either side, this dreamlike scenery collided with what humans consider to be aesthetic and build and baptise as architecture. I wanted to draw my own version, apart from the rest,” explains Miguel Angel Aragones.

“I believe that the greatest virtue of architecture is the generation of sensations through space on a series of planes that are found within the realm of sensitivity. I believe this capacity becomes greater when your surroundings allow you to meld into them, forming thus part of your own space; in this sense, I wanted to take that horizon and bring it into the foreground. The water is an event that borders the entire project; all of the volumes open up toward the sea and turn their backs on the city, which is all that remains of the original surroundings. Mar Adentro is a kind of Medina that opens out onto the sea. Each floating volume contains interiors that form, in turn, independent universes. Each room visually contains a piece of the sea; no one can resist gazing out at it,” shares Aragones.

Framed wall spaces are liberated by the ocean and open skies, restoring sensations of wellbeing. Mar Adentro is, without doubt, a space constantly transformed by light.

A series of plain, concrete walls raised by local craftsmanship and fitted with innovative, easy-to-use, individually tailored details, where the horizon is the only limit to the constant, linear view; the mood may change, but never the form. The design components, furniture, and interiors harmonise with the simplicity of the architecture and are installed on-site by local hands.

“Each room was built in a factory. Poliform was our ally. We built the entire interior structure and sent it in boxes across the sea to its destination, where it was assembled on site by local hands. In a question of days the first room was ready, of a quality subject to the tyranny of a machine and the wisdom of hands dedicated over the course of a lifetime to construction. There was no room for improvisation, and yet the room was fashioned with intelligence, imagination, and dedication. I learned from those German and Italian manufacturers what we sometimes fail to intuit from schools or books over the course of many years,” explains the architect.

Seriously – what more is there to say. A lot actually, although we are simply trying not to dribble all over the keyboard here. And you – how are you coping?