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Architects: estudio ALA
- Area: 55 m²
- Year: 2022
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Photographs:Iwan Baan
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Lead Architects: Armida Fernández, Luis Enrique Flores
Text description provided by the architects. El Perdido spiritual space draws inspiration from the foundational rustic chapels of the Baja California peninsula. This Ramadas initially built with natural and ephemeral materials served to carry out the first religious ceremonies in the seventeenth century. The plan of the spiritual space is oriented towards the east as a symbol of communion between the different beliefs of the ancient traditional civilizations. Having the historical missions of the Baja California peninsula in the background, El Perdido spiritual space mediates between the exterior and the interior patio, bringing together inmates and the community. Analogically with the religious spaces of the missions that mediated between the exterior and the cloister, the spiritual space is part of the perimeter wall and the most public space of the complex.
The space can extend its capacity towards the internal courtyard where spiritual and social events can occur. This is achieved by opening the tall doors that are part of the translucent facade and connect with the interior of the patio that houses a fountain and 4 mediterranean date palms as its main elements. Date palms were introduced by the missionary priests and dates are a symbol of the fruit of subsistence in the desert. The spiritual space was built with natural and endemic materials such as vara de arco, palm thatched roof, wood and rammed earth walls from the site. Thanks to its material qualities, the interior has the ability to contain and release its own space at the same time, charging it with great spiritual strength and at the same time providing it with natural and permanent cross ventilation through its façade that filters sunlight and ventilates permanently.
From the outside, the spiritual space does not reveal its program and acts as the main focal point of the entrance of the complex. It is through the sequence of spaces that the spiritual space can be discovered entering from the street or from the interior patio below ground level where it is revealed with greater hierarchy converging with the main walls of the patio.
