Baja Club Hotel, La Paz

Max von Werz Architects

Products

1004
Door handle fitting

FSB 1004 by David Chip­per­field bears the hall­mark of the Mod­ernist pi­o­neers. It is un­der­pinned by a clean-lined formal concept that meets all func­tional re­quire­ments giving ex­pres­sion to his formal idea in both public and private spheres.

1004
Door handle fitting
34 1004
Window handle
38 3878
Doorstop

The fascinating question of reuse

"I am fas­ci­nated by the uni­ver­sal ques­tion of how to in­te­grate old and new har­mo­niously. How to build on the rich history and char­ac­ter of a place while also up­dat­ing it to give it a new lease on life," says ar­chi­tect Max von Werz of his work on the Baja Club Hotel in La Paz, Mexico. He re­stored a villa from 1914, once a site for oyster pearl har­vest­ing, for Mexican hote­lier Grupo Habita and ex­tended it into a boldly elegant hotel. His ap­proach: to listen to the old wa­ter­front prop­erty and try to learn from what he found.

The result is a place that seems to be of another era, in the best pos­si­ble sense. The gleam­ing white colo­nial-style res­i­dence has been aug­mented with a tiered, four-story new-build that brings back a time when a stream­lined ocean liner still evoked a bold new world of speed and ro­man­tic ad­ven­ture. Sweep­ing views from its ter­races take in the Bay of La Paz. The L-shaped old and new build­ings nestle to­gether en­velop­ing a verdant central court­yard.

As the heart and jewel of the new ex­ten­sion, a white helical stair­case reveals its sculp­tural char­ac­ter to the outdoor spaces. Po­si­tioned at the hinge point between the two wings of the new build­ing, it con­nects the four levels to each other and sweeps vis­i­tors up to the rooftop sunset bar. The newly created linear pool awaits in a rear court­yard, where the ter­ra­cotta tones of the antique brick walls and new, broad loung­ing plat­forms, nicely ac­com­pa­nied by red-and-white striped sunbeds, con­trast with the smooth white sur­faces of the new build­ing.

Architect and Object

Photo: © Vicky Reyes

‘I think one of the crucial ques­tions re­gard­ing the climate crisis is whether we will manage to embrace re­straint. Up­grad­ing and re­pur­pos­ing ob­so­lete build­ing stock as a form of re­source con­ser­va­tion is a sig­nif­i­cant factor in this regard," says ar­chi­tect Max von Werz.

Exercising restraint

Pre­serv­ing ex­ist­ing struc­tures and care­fully up­dat­ing them for new uses - this sus­tain­able mindset is fun­da­men­tal for Max von Werz Ar­chi­tects. Part of the project's en­vi­ron­men­tally friendly ap­proach, however, is also a wide range of mea­sures to min­i­mize energy con­sump­tion. Passive design so­lu­tions were em­ployed, for example, in order to reduce the de­pen­dence on me­chan­i­cal air con­di­tion­ing. The new build­ing’s pro­ject­ing floor plates provide shade to the in­te­rior spaces thereby re­duc­ing solar heat gain. Nu­mer­ous water el­e­ments dis­trib­uted across the site provide re­fresh­ment through evap­o­ra­tion in

the hot and dry north­ern Mexican climate. The ar­chi­tect col­lab­o­rated with the in­te­rior design firm JAUNE. The result of the part­ner­ship are in­te­rior and ex­te­rior spaces that make evident their respect for the orig­i­nal prop­erty. Mexico's lush palette of colours and tex­tures, and its rich tra­di­tion of crafts­man­ship find a modern yet time­less in­ter­pre­ta­tion here. The hotel's ma­te­r­ial palette draws on the prop­erty’s orig­i­nal de­tail­ing, such as the hand­crafted ter­razzo tiles, tra­di­tional timber lat­tice­work, or the blown glass lamps in trans­par­ent and amber hues.

FSB prod­ucts were used as subtle visual accents. "Whereby their ex­cep­tional quality and noble ma­te­ri­al­ity can be dis­cov­ered and lit­er­ally felt by the hotel guests," says the ar­chi­tect, who de­scribes his se­lected handle model, the FSB 1004, as ‘time­less and refined’. The bronze handles with their warm tone and lightly pati­nated and waxed finish are a perfect match for the lively Mexican ma­te­ri­als that shape the project ad make it some­thing special.

Building details

Photos: © Cesar Bejar

Location

Hotel Baja La Paz Mexiko

Paseo Alvaro Obregon 265,
La Paz,
Baja Cal­i­for­nia Sur,
23000, Mexico

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