Credit: César Béjar
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In Cabos, the Héctor Barroso Workshop is a sober sports domain composed of horizontal lines, negatives and adobe
A rugged corridor winds from the desert plateaus of the Baja California Peninsula to its prized waterfront. It’s one of Mexico’s most sensible vacation destinations, but its herbaceous splendor contrasts with the mediocrity of the built environment. Los Cabos, a 30-mile-long car-centric stretch along the southern tip of the peninsula, is best known for its quirky resorts designed in a generic cool style or with an old-fashioned pastiche that unconvincingly mimics the textures and colors of classic Mexican pueblos. The golf courses are exchanged with the commodified coastline, available only to the predominantly American hotel clientele.
In this context, it is easy to overlook the sports complex designed through the Mexico City company Taller Héctor Barroso (THB) to host the region’s annual tennis tournament, the Los Cabos Open. The allocation was commissioned through a hospitality-focused investment organization in 2019, but shortly after launch, the pandemic intervened; As work was about to resume, the client’s attention had shifted to a nearby megahotel. After all, when the THB commission was launched, a year late, only 40 percent of the initially planned plan had been executed. Years later, it remains incomplete and is used intermittently.
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Barroso, known for his considered residential designs with earth tones that adapt perfectly to his surroundings, says he chose the Cabo Sports Complex to cope with a new scale and typology, and for its ordinary setting. On the border between the towns of San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, which make up Los Cabos, the sloping site is isolated from the ocean across the road and its prospects are partially obscured by hotels, but it also offers spectacular white space. page. ” The arid topography, with its steep slope, was challenging and irresistible,” he says; It was an opportunity to make a silence in the face of the dominant advertising architecture in the region, whose disregard for context combined with flashy attributes tends to make it look dated in a short time. “When I arrived in Los Cabos it reminded me of Las Vegas or Disneyland, designed to attract foreign tourists with a false concept of Mexicanness,” Barroso recalls. “I felt I needed to do the opposite, something so calm and sophisticated that the architecture became a supporting character or a backdrop. “
In fact, the maximum unique features of the architect’s composition are discreetly incorporated into the site: a series of adobe walls inscribed along an invisible underlying grid. Since the official tennis courts will have to be oriented from north to south and the area required for a minimum of five courts are limited, Barroso designed perpendicular axes, running from north to south and east to west. Architecture emerges where imaginary lines intersect, materializing here and there in the form of walls, voids and promenades to accommodate the required, if vaguely explained, program. , adding bathrooms, conversion rooms, educational and rest regions, as well as offices and administrative regions.
The earthy draping that is Barroso’s calling card takes on all its meaning in Los Cabos; The site endures the relentless sun exposure of the tropical desert climate from morning to night. “To build I had to use local land,” explains the architect. “First of all, it works wonderfully, both acoustically and thermally. ” The walls of the complex are built layer upon layer of an aggregate of sand, water and five percent cement, used as a stabilizer. This aggregate was pressed into a concrete base, which is necessary to prevent moisture from penetrating. The visual grains and soft earthy tones of the ancient structure approach give the walls a tactile warmth that belies their effective cooling in hot climates. For Barroso, the selection of curtains was as pragmatic as it was aesthetic. “We had a tight schedule and the execution would not be perfect. Rammed earth allows mistakes to be made,” he says. The architect also had an idea of how his commission would look for posterity. “A constant fear in my practice is how things will age. Rammed earth maintains its dignity over time and is enriched with a patina. It is timeless.
“The walls articulate and delineate what may simply be a disorienting open space, guiding users through the place”
The central organizational element of the commission is a two-hundred-meter-long wall, interrupted in three sections to allow traffic, which cuts the five-hectare plot of land from east to west; It runs along a wide path that evokes the ceremonial avenues occasionally discovered in Mesoamerican cities. “I have vivid memories of Monte Albán and other archaeological sites, its platforms, squares and lowered volumes,” says Barroso. The sports complex is organized around this central path, which is staggered to adapt to the slope of the terrain. Other walls rise and fall, 400mm thick, parallel or perpendicular to this main road, and never higher than 6m (and once as low as 1. 6m). The walls are not just aesthetic gestures, they articulate and delineate what may simply be a disorienting open space, guiding users through position; Barroso likes to say that the walls “embrace and accompany” the visitor. In the case of the long east-west divide, its windowless south-facing façade serves as a protective shield against the sun. To the north of the long wall and partially surrounded through it is the player’s building, as well as an unbuilt layout that will space the offices. The main stadium, an imposing black steel design designed through a specialist company, lies slightly to the north between the two, and its visual dominance is well reinforced through the sandy textures of the walls.
The southern part of the complex is occupied by a crater-like field, higher education fields, and a multi-purpose plaza in the center. The “crater” is striking, as the inherent slope of the site is harnessed through the high steps of the grandstand, also formed by layers of compacted soil. A 7. 5 m high tower, which houses the price box, is the only detail that breaks the horizontality of the complex. It was designed to mark the main front and balance the total with a vertical counterpoint. With an impressive cactus planted in front, the tower and the adjacent long recessed wall constitute the maximum photogenic scene of the project. However, Barroso’s scant details never compete with the spectacle of nature, which allows him to continue to be – with a strong experiential quotient – the protagonist. Even unfinished, the result is intuitive and rational; enveloping and open; rudimentary and generous; Beautiful and functional.
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Located on other flattened levels, the meticulous modulation of staggered volumes, planes and lines belies the flexibility of the plan, as a whole and in its individual designs. Each building at the Cabo Sports Complex is designed to be multifunctional in its own right, as evidenced through the players’ lounge, an open, airy hangar-like area that may one day be filled with treadmills and function as a classroom or be divided. in intimate corners. on some other occasion. Facing north, glazed areas and a pergola make up the area, while interior terraces provide ventilation and shade. On the opposite, closed side, are the service areas and the athletes’ locker rooms. A long wall that is, once again, an extension of one aspect of the design – a recurring feature of Barroso’s design – allows for a leisurely technique from the living room to the stadium full of spectators, making it less difficult for the players to concentrate before a match A brief variety of undeniable materials, including metal for bathroom doors and pine for structural roof beams, can withstand heavy use and harsh weather.
While the eight-day tournament is held once a year, THB has been asked to provide flexible services that can work for various uses in any given season. The architect says that the project was intended to be gradually abandoned and evolve over time. , all of the structural paintings are suspended (to an uninformed visitor, the place would seem finished, if eerily quiet), but a customer representative has shown plans to complete the complex and enable it year-round, hosting football matches and music concerts. . among other events.
In an interview in his office in the Condesa neighborhood of the Mexican capital, Barroso described the construction process of the tennis center as demanding. In addition to the disruptions and delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the first contractor Barroso moved into the domain proved difficult to work with for a few months to ensure the job was built to his specifications. Even after the builder was replaced by a more compatible company, the existing iteration of the task evolved in situ as we went with the flow and only satisfied the architect after adopting improvisations and deviations from the original plans. “They tell me about paintings with conditions, anything that is essential to build in Mexico. It’s frustrating until they tell you how to adapt it and use it to your advantage. Everything is done individually, and continuing with the design even after the paintings have started It is an opportunity for improvement and correction.
It’s a shame and a bit of a shame that Barroso’s nuanced, immortal creation sits dormant for most of the year. Once the remaining program is implemented, adding a media room and more amenities for staff and guests, the community will enjoy a new lease. of life as a personal service to citizens of the high-level advancements that Olarena, the investment organization that commissioned it, operates and has planned nearby. In an ideal world, this pleasantly low-key position can be enjoyed across a wider diversity of local communities. But even partially learned and out of reach for many, the Cabo Sports Complex largely fulfills its purpose as the annual tournament host and long-term track club, thanks to its delicate design. The sea in the distance and the horizon, its layers of land make up a very good oasis of silence in an environment as majestic as it is prosaic.
Once a year, the Los Cabos Regional Open Tennis Tournament is held at the resort; The tents and other transitional structures were last set up for 8 days in February 2024. Although the main stadium was to be dismantled, there are no plans to remove it lately. In this noisy environment, the subtlety of the architect’s design struggles to compete.
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