Casa Macahuite looks like the kind of house that would require heavy trucks, cranes, and large construction equipment. But reaching this remote site on the coast of Oaxaca meant crossing an old, narrow bridge over a lagoon — making conventional heavy construction extremely difficult.
Studio Font responded with a building process that was far more hands-on than the finished house suggests. Materials arrived in small loads, concrete was produced on site, and large steel beams were moved and installed individually.
The architecture itself is just as direct: four massive concrete walls and one central roof organize almost the entire house. Between them, a 46-foot column-free span creates a shaded living space open to the Pacific, the mountains, and the coastal air.
Casa Macahuite is a house where monumental architecture had to emerge from surprisingly limited means.
Architects: Studio Font Location: Oaxaca City, Mexico Area: 300 m² Year: 2025 Photography: Albers Studio
Casa Macauit is a monumental concrete residence located on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. Despite its massive appearance, it was built using a handcrafted approach due to site accessibility constraints. The design focuses on a minimalist structure of four walls and one central roof, blending raw materials with the surrounding natural landscape of the Pacific coast.
This house looks almost too heavy to have been built there.
And that was exactly the problem.
Casa Macauit sits in a remote area along the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico,
where access to the site requires crossing an old, narrow bridge over a lagoon.
Large loads and heavy equipment couldn't simply reach the site the way they would
on a conventional construction project.
But Studio Font wanted to build a concrete house,
with massive walls and steel beams spanning about 46 feet.
So before figuring out the architecture, they first had to figure out how to build it.
Materials had to arrive in small loads.
The concrete was produced right on site,
using a system adapted to lighter vehicles that could cross the bridge.
And the large steel roof beams were transported and installed one at a time,
with their weight distributed among several workers.
It was a much more hands-on construction process
than the house's monumental appearance would suggest.
Casa Macauit is about 3,230 square feet and sits near Puerto Escondido,
between the Pacific Ocean and the mountains of Oaxaca.
The house is set back from the beach,
and occupies an existing clearing surrounded by vegetation.
This helps preserve the dune,
while the landscape provides privacy without blocking views of the ocean and the mountains.
Despite how difficult it was to build,
the idea behind the house is surprisingly simple.
Four massive concrete walls and one central roof.
Five main planes do almost all the work.
The walls form two blocks at opposite ends.
Between them, the roof stretches across the center.
In plan, the whole arrangement roughly resembles the letter H.
But the center of that H isn't just a connection between the two sides,
it's the main space of the house.
Large steel beams span about 46 feet without intermediate supports,
leaving the area below completely open.
This space works as the arrival point, circulation,
and the main living area, always open to the landscape.
Technically, the beams were made specifically for this span,
and given a calculated upward curve so they would end up level once installed.
Getting them there, however, required a different strategy.
Each piece had to be moved individually,
without relying on the heavy equipment normally associated with a building of this scale.
What now looks like a roof floating between two massive concrete forms
came from a much more handcrafted construction process.
That structure also explains how the house works.
Instead of hiding columns, beams, and walls behind finishes,
studio font almost eliminates that separation.
The structure organizes the spaces and becomes the finished surface at the same time.
In the kitchen, a long concrete counter stretches from one wall to the other.
Sofa bases and parts of the bathrooms also seem to grow directly out of the architecture.
The private spaces are located inside the two side blocks.
The bedrooms occupy double-height spaces,
with openings that frame different parts of the surroundings.
In some places, you see the Pacific.
In others, the mountains or the vegetation.
Between the two sides is the pool,
reinforcing the axis that connects the different parts of the house.
There's also an interesting solution in the large wooden shutters.
In a region exposed to cyclones,
you might expect the house to try to block the wind completely.
Here, part of the strategy is actually to let it pass through.
The shutters are permeable.
In everyday use, they keep the rooms ventilated.
During stronger winds, they allow some of the air to move through the house,
instead of turning every opening into a completely sealed barrier.
The wood also changes the feel of the interiors.
Doors, shutters, and furniture were made from perota wood,
creating a warmer contrast with the large concrete surfaces.
This limited material palette also makes sense
in a place shaped by sand, humidity, salt air, and strong winds.
Instead of hiding the structure beneath multiple layers,
much of the house simply uses the materials it was built from as the final finish.
In the end, there's a contradiction between what Casa Macauete looks like
and how it was actually built.
Looking at these massive concrete surfaces and the 46-foot roof span,
it's easy to imagine a construction site dominated by trucks, machinery, and heavy equipment.
But here, materials arrived in small loads.
The concrete had to be produced on site.
Large beams were moved one at a time.
And maybe that's why it makes sense that after all that effort,
the house was reduced to so few elements.
Four walls.
One roof.
And almost everything the house needs happens from there.
