Architecture in Colour investigates the role of colour in architecture as a spatial and structural tool, influencing perception, orientation, and material expression beyond aesthetics.
Conceived as a flexible domestic ecosystem, the Red House in Bahías de Huatulco, Oaxaca by Angel García Arquitectura, brings together three independent yet interconnected dwellings for a single family. The project balances compartmentalization and privacy with openness and adaptability, articulating the units through exterior and semi-exterior spaces shaped around existing vegetation. Clay brick, ironwork, and pigmented concrete recall the reddish hues of Oaxacan ceramics, rooting the architecture in local tradition and material memory. Rejecting formal reduction, the house embraces complexity—layered textures, curves, filtered light, and vegetation—cultivating an architecture of warmth, intimacy, and evolving domestic ritual.
Located in a residential neighborhood of Bahías de Huatulco, just minutes from the Pacific coast, Red House by Angel García Arquitectura is set within a dense urban fabric, surrounded by neighboring houses and without direct sea views.
Rather than responding to the horizon, the project turns inward, constructing its own landscape through patios, gardens, and semi-exterior spaces.
The site is bordered on three sides by adjacent residences, while its western edge opens toward a main street overlooking an undeveloped natural area. This condition informed an architectural strategy that balances enclosure and permeability: blind façades to the north and south protect privacy, while porous east and west façades dissolve the boundary between interior and exterior through terraces, balconies, patios, and vegetation.
The house was conceived as a flexible domestic ecosystem accommodating three independent living units for the same family a private dwelling for the eldest son, a central home for the parents, and a third space designed to host visitors.
Privacy and autonomy are achieved through spatial separation, while a network of exterior and semi-exterior connections allows the house to function as a cohesive whole.
A central corridor-gallery wraps around the pool, acting simultaneously as access, circulation, and social spine. This open sequence articulates movement throughout the house, encouraging encounters while maintaining clear thresholds between the different units. Existing trees on the plot were preserved and integrated into the design, with the main entrance positioned between a Guayacán and an Alejo tree.
Materiality plays a fundamental role in expressing both place and memory. Pigmented concrete walls echo the warm, reddish hues of Oaxacan ceramics, while clay bricks, ironwork, wooden shutters and handcrafted details ground the project in local building traditions.
The architecture becomes a backdrop for the family’s collected objects, furniture, and crafts, allowing everyday life to complete the spatial narrative.
Rejecting minimalism and formal reduction, Red House embraces complexity and sensory perception. Curves, layered textures, filtered light, and winding paths evoke the idea of a domestic labyrinth, an architecture shaped by movement and discovery, with the vegetation growing freely through the spaces, softening boundaries.
More than a singular architectural object, Red House is an exploration of domesticity as identity.
It reinterprets the routines, memories, and aspirations of its inhabitants, translating them into a spatial collage that reflects intimacy and the spirit of Oaxaca.
Facts & Credits
Project title Red House
Typology Residential
Location Huatulco, Oaxaca
Architecture Angel García Arquitectura
Architect Ángel García
Team Francisco Espinoza, Felipe Rebolledo, Diego Alzaga
Surface 425 sqm
Collaborators Structural Engineering – Ing. Leonardo Leyva
Solar panels Cazando el Sol S.A. de CV.
Blacksmith Arq. Raciel Mendoza
Carpentry Maestro Fidel Rojas Santiago
Construction Ángel García + Jorge Díaz
Photography César Béjar Estudio
Text provided by the architects
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