This Todos Santos residence takes shape on a raw, brush-covered lot just off the beach, its concrete volumes composed to serve two purposes at once: a house built for entertaining large groups, and a quiet retreat for the couple who commissioned it.
The plan is organized around passive comfort — walls of glass and concrete mass tuned to catch the region's afternoon cooling breeze through the summer months, while the same thermal mass holds warmth through winter. A garage and covered arrival sequence lead into a sheltered courtyard with a cooling water feature, drawing air through the house on one side of the main living room. Fully open on the opposite side, the same room looks out past the pool to the ocean beyond — the courtyard and the sea working as a single cross-breeze.
An open exterior stair rises from a second-floor rooftop patio to a third-level rooftop lookout, the massing stepping and shifting to shade key openings and frame views out to the desert landscape. A detached guest apartment sits apart from the main volume, linked back to the house's rooftop patio by a bridge.
