The world's best golfer just unveiled plans for the $100 million Punta Brava (which means “wild point”) golf resort set to open late in 2011. The project located just south of Ensenada, Mexico will be composed of villas, casitas and a private club all enhanced by a scenic, 264-acre coastal setting that includes a 1,200-foot peak and ragged sea cliffs.Mr. Woods brought together for this project three notable Mexican firms: project architects Legorreta + Legorreta, ABAX Architecture, and A5 arquitectura. Alejandro Bernardi, an architect with the firm A5, stated that one design consideration was to blend some details of heritage Mexican architecture with a more contemporary environment.
The complex includes 39 estate lots ranging from 3/4 to 3 acres, 99 villa residences from 4,500 to 7,000 square feet, and 14 club casitas for the guests of residents. Residences are perched on the vertical terrain of the site, appearing to slide out of the hillsides in layers. With stonework that matches existing rock and landscaping with native plants, the designs are intended to ease the transition from natural to man-made environments.- www.archpaper.com, "Swinging Design"
Not to be forgotten is the golf course designed by Tiger himself with each hole of the 70 par course giving players a clear view of the ocean including eight shots that require driving the ball over the bay, which I'm sure he threw in just to be mean.
“The merger of traditional Mexican craftsmanship or ‘artesania’ as we call it, with the modern needs of architectural function, has an amazing result,” Bernardi said. This look, he added, is achieved by transposing materials like traditional terra cotta with more contemporary exposed concrete, and recreating traditional Mexican wood details like lattice, shades, and shutters with modern lines.
Another feature of the overall design was to enhance the views and the experience of the occupants by having a seamless transition between indoors and outdoors by blurring interior and exterior boundaries. Showers open to the outdoors, walls seemingly disappear to provide occupants with unobstructed views to the ocean and rooftops planted with indigenous plants provide residents with usable green terraces.
The project also boasts sustainable strategies: thick stone walls to help with thermal massing and tap into passive solar opportunities due to the warmer climate. Also, Punta Brava has been designed to be completely independent from the Ensenada water grid, using an on-site desalinization plant and reusing all wastewater.
I am very pleased with Mr Woods' plans and actually appreciate his decision to have a team of the best local architects who are better able to understand the complexity of the environment and how best to work with it. Also, I'm glad that even though this development is not located in the United States, plans to make it as energy efficient as possible were integrated into the overall scope especially as energy codes are less stringent in Mexico.
Image obtained from: www.archpaper.com
Article details obtained from: Alissa Walker's "Swinging Design"
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