Casa Mérida

Interconnected Elements, Mayan Inspiration

Architect Ludwig Godefroy’s Mayan-influenced monolith in Mérida’s urban center references ancient indigenous traditions via its massive, geometric design. A new take on sacbe, Mayan linear pathways that connected plazas, temples, and water sources, the solid modern residence has bold, artfully fragmented architectural lines of exposed concrete designed in a series of interconnected living spaces and open-air patios. The mass is made breezy by striking architectural cross-ventilation features (jutting walls, soaring angled ceilings, cut-outs, and sculptural rainwater collection wells and chutes) that also combat the region’s sub-tropical climate.

The raw concrete, urban villa evokes modern Brutalism even as it takes its design cues from the ancient Maya. Though unique in form, the home’s construction relied almost entirely on local Yucatec masons and carpenters. The exceptionally long, narrow, 80-by-8-meter lot still holds ruins of the property’s original stone structure, now incorporated into the innovative design. The villa features a deep front garden that serves as a buffer from the street, and the home was built on a long central axis offset by open courtyards. 

Sculptural, poured concrete rooms feature stark, built-in nooks, benches, openings and passageways. A cenote-inspired swimming pool punctuates the linear residence, and louvered wooden doors and windows pivot and slide open to reveal outdoor pockets hung with hammocks and lined by rock gardens. Interiors are somber and simply furnished—another nod to the ancients who weren’t big on ornamentation. Green features include a closed-loop water system, absorption wells, a biodigester to treat wastewater for irrigation, and solar boilers and photovoltaic panels.

AROUND

Centrally located within Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, its capital Mérida is known as “the white city," an increasingly happening town that mingles 4,000+ year old indigenous Mayan cultural tradition with 16th-century Spanish colonial culture. Beyond history and archeology, gastronomy has become a draw to Mérida, where exotic tropical produce fills local market stands, cocoa farms occupy dense jungle villages beyond the city limits, and pre-Columbian foods have been artfully reincarnated at the hands of locally-focused young chefs, who turn out new, contemporary versions of cochinitia pibil and papadzules. 

Chichén Itzá stands 75 miles east of Mérida, the UNESCO listed Mayan ruin of Uxmal is about an hour and a half south. Dozens of lesser-celebrated pyramids offer tours and a deep dive into Mayan culture, and pueblos mágicos (Valladolid, Izmal) are also close by and worth exploring. Cenotes, or natural sinkholes in the region’s limestone bedrock that once served as water supplies for the ancient Maya, are part of what define the Yucatán Peninsula, where more than 10,000 of these deep blue swimming holes are located. Each cenote is uniquely beautiful, and hundreds are accessible as lushly camouflaged swimming holes.

LOCATION

Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. Nearest Airport: Mérida (7 miles)

BEST TIME TO VISIT: Year round