Esencia

Studio MK27

Short description

Esencia is a living extension of Cabo Rojo’s rich landscapes and cultural diversity.
This seafront community unfolds organically, weaving through Puerto Rico’s lush scenery with a sinuous, responsive design.
At its heart, a 100-key hotel emerges from the terrain, its fluid form embracing the contours of the land. The suites, oriented towards the sea, verdant mountains, and intimate gardens, embody a seamless dialogue between built space and nature. The project lines moves softly, and delineates a modular façade that plays with rhythm and depth, juxtaposing solids and voids.
Materiality is the soul of the project, grounding Esencia in its context. Irregular flagstones, slatted wooden panels, and vibrant marbles form a tactile connection to the landscape. Inside each room, a rich tapestry of textures reflects Puerto Rico’s nuances—embroidered textiles, indigenous ceramics, and striking stones compose a sensory journey that brings the local essence indoors.
Beyond the hotel, the resort extends into the terrain with 42 beachfront and hillside villas, designed as a natural extension of the horizon. Five unique typologies create a rich, yet simple, architectural language, blending concrete slats, wooden mashrabiyas, hollowed bricks, and marble planters to compose a timeless and contextual presence.
Ascending the hillside, a collection of twelve four-story dwellings reinterprets tropical living. Light concrete slabs define open-air apartments that dissolve the boundaries between inside and out, offering an ever-changing experience of the surrounding nature.
Esencia is a study in balance—between modernity and tradition, architecture and landscape, craft and innovation. It is an invitation to inhabit nature with elegance and authenticity, redefining the essence of tropical modernism.