RA!, HOTEL LAIVA PLAZA
Lavia Plaza Boutique Hotel in San José del Cabo’s old city centre, one of Mexico's main tourist destinations, stands out for its sculptural and highly elaborate design that blends into the city's pedestrian fabric, offering accommodation that feels both cosy and also connected to its surroundings.
Designed by the Mexican architecture firm RA! – founded in 2017 by Cristóbal Ramírez de Aguilar, Pedro Ramírez de Aguilar and Santiago Sierra – and developed by Grupo Laiva, the building is intended to be an iconic urban landmark featuring a system of walls that are partly criss-crossed and partly staggered to create interconnected patios and terraces.
The building structure is gradually set back to respect the scale of the old city centre, while the rhythmic patter of its features evokes the paper flags you see along the streets of San José. The brick-red colour scheme and hand-crafted stucco add a delicate, timeless mineral quality to enhance the idea of hospitality facility that's deeply rooted in its urban and cultural setting.
The
building is arranged in mixed-use spaces on the ground floor with two levels of
guest rooms and a rooftop garden with amenities facing the city. Its layout
responds to the pedestrian and public nature of the old city centre, using colour
as a means of embodying its cultural identity.
Setting the building back from the street opens up a public atrium that creates shade, ventilation and a smooth transition from outside to inside. The entrance is designed like an open threshold, where a shaded passageway mediates the relationship between public and interior space.
Rather than working as a standalone object, the project is shaped like an extension of the street, incorporating the flow of the city into its spatial layout. Inside, the building is organised around a central vertical courtyard that sets out the circulation, brings in natural light, and helps provide cross ventilation.
This empty space controls both the climate and spatial layout, creating a calm, softly lit atmosphere. The stairs visually open onto the courtyard through circular apertures reinforcing the sense of continuity between indoors and outdoors.
Client: Grupo Laiva; Project: RA! (@ra_arquitectos); Team: Santiago Sierra, Pedro Ramírez de Aguilar, Cristóbal Rámirez de Aguilar, Valentina Oregón, Carlos Fuentes, Oscar Salazar, Daniel Martínez, Andrés Rubín, Mateo Macouzet, Gustavo Cortés; Engineering: DDOZ Structural Engineering; Mechanical & Plumbing Engineering: GRAVA | Antonio Villareal, Engineer; Electrical Engineering: Eduardo Martínez, Engineer; Media Contact: Gustavo Cortés. Photography: Oscar Hernández
