Alejandro D’Acosta and Claudia Turrent’s experiments in green design
By Barbara Thornburg
Architects Alejandro D’Acosta and Claudia Turrent are on a quest to promote a sustainable way of life for themselves and their community in the nascent revolucion verde just south of the Tijuana border. The Ensenada coast and nearby Valle de Guadalupe wine-making region inland are testing grounds for their experiments in green design, and though the couple’s architecture can be grand, their own home is a simple trailer that lies lightly on the earth, facing the northern Baja coastline where waves break dramatically. Here, D’Acosta opens the gate adorned with a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe. “A guy with a small stand in front of our property use to sell sunglasses here,” D’Acosta says, adding that the Ray-Ban sign’s numbers have become their official address.
Click here to see other examples of the couple’s adventures in sustainable design. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
DAcosta and Turrent joined a 1940s American mobile home with a Mexican office trailer to make a comfortable, inexpensive dwelling that seems to float on the land. Recycled aluminum doors and windows came from second-hand shops in Ensenada. An open-air aluminum-and-wood pavilion they reclaimed from an old factory is covered with carizzo, a cane grass, taken from their neighbors trash. Recycled telephone poles support the structure; recycled beams from an old bridge make up the deck. All vernacular architecture depends on what you have at hand,” D’Acosta says. “We need to train our eyes to convert things near us into usable objects.
Click here to see other examples of the couple’s adventures in sustainable design. And click here to see some of the Mexican wineries they’ve designed. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Husband and wife architects DAcosta and Turrent of TAC-Arquitectos in Ensenada, Mexico, sit in their living room, which is decorated with second-hand furnishings. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Claudia Turrents fathers desk, made in the 1970s by Mexican designer Horacio Duran, serves as the family kitchen table. Colorful hand-painted chairs are from a chair shop she and D’Acosta once had in Mexico City. The wood floor practically the only thing not recycled in the trailer home is from
Click here to see other examples of the couple’s adventures in sustainable design. And click here to see some of the Mexican wineries they’ve designed. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
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The couples bedroom features unpainted drywall walls and exposed rafters. A large jaguar painting on a track slides back and forth to close off the room for privacy. All windows and doors throughout the trailer are recycled. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
The couples bathroom is filled with santos collected over the years.
Click here to see other examples of the couple’s adventures in sustainable design. And click here to see some of the Mexican wineries they’ve designed. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
D’Acosta poses next to an X-ray of his broken clavicle, which is used as decoration in the house. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Bare-bones decor: DAcosta likes to incorporate objects from family and friends into his architecture. The X-rays of family and friends hang on the trailers glass bathroom wall. They are now a part of the house, DAcosta quips. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
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Three cafe chairs sit at the end of the couples redwood deck, made with wood salvaged from an old bridge. Turrent is fashioning furnishings for her condominium project, Viento, out of the same redwood beams.
Click here to see other examples of the couple’s adventures in sustainable design. And click here to see some of the Mexican wineries they’ve designed. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
The 60-foot-long trailer has been reclad in corrugated composite panels. The kitchen doors reflect the sunset view of the coast and offshore islands.
Click here to see other examples of the couple’s adventures in sustainable design. And click here to see some of the Mexican wineries they’ve designed. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
D’Acosta and Turrent sit at the end of their oceanside property at sunset.
For Part II of this package, a peek inside the wine school were D’Acosta framed one building in mattress springs as deployed olive oil filters as wall decor, click to Don Barletti’s next photo gallery.
And click here for Part III--see some of the Mexican wineries they’ve designed. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
