PHOTO: Natalia Zieman
PHOTO: Cade Hayes
Lightning: Your design firm Dust is based mainly in Desert design, can you explain a little about what draws you personally to the desert and wanting to design and work with and within it?
Jesus Robles: We grew up here. Cade spent all of his childhood in the Chihuahuan Desert in southern New Mexico. I was born in southern Arizona and my folks moved to the deserts of southern California. We traveled to Texas quite oDen to visit my grandparents in El Paso, and we eventually moved to Texas. The Dirt/Dust has been a mainstay in our lives, for as long as we can remember. It’s hard to describe in words what personally draws me to this place, or any. It’s more of a feeling I suppose, rooted deeply in memory and the senses. My desire to design and work with and within the desert comes from a deeper observation and understanding of the place. One only gained by the experience. I’m no expert by any means, but my skin doesn’t feel as it does here, when I’m in another climatic zone. I feel the environ- ment here is a laboratory for living. The resources are limited and there’s a certain isolation that separates us from the rest of the world. There’s a stark need for resourcefulness among all species. Artistically I’m drawn to the qualities of light and atmosphere, the phenomena of the Sonoran Desert. It’s an inspiring place.
Canyon de Chelly Photo: Jesus Robles
L: You are very knowledgable about desert history and the various building techniques that different civilizations have used there over the years, can you explain how Dust incorporates and uses these ideas as well as draws inspiration from them?
J: We’re inspired by the Archaic. Our region is home to a lot of history. The remains of civilizations passed leave an indelible mark upon us, and we try to learn from them. What sort of things did they respond to? Similar things that we need to respond to, but in our modern world, we may take those things for granted. If we lived in the pacific northwest, we’d look for similar cues to respond to, and look to the vernacular and history of that region.
L: How does architecture become intimate, attuned to, and informed by the environment?
J: In a simple way, architecture becomes one with the environment by responding and reacting to it. Passive solar, natural ventilation, material, views, how it meets the land. In other ways, it’s a completely intuitive process, to employ and to experience such a noJon, to attune to the environment. It’s up to the senses. There’s a certain level of awareness and care that has to take place for the architecture to harmonize with its environment. It’s then upon the inhabitants of the space to tune into the surroundings, and ultimately themselves in it.
L: Can you talk about your experience with Donald Judd’s work and the meeting point for you between sculpture and architecture?
J: While in Lubbock, Texas, I had an opportunity in graduate school to be a research assistant for a professor writing a book on the architecture of Donald Judd.
We spent some time in Marfa, documenting all the buildings that Judd had transformed. Many spaces were dedicated to all types of work; past work, friends’ work, collected work, prototypes, complete... My time spent surrounding Judd’s work in Marfa, from wake to sleep, had a lasting effect on me. To experience his work in the different desert lights, really started to click in my mind what it was all about, I mean to me, of course. His work pays a deal of respect to space, through place, scale, and light in such an abstract way. For me, there’s a transcendence in his work. He has created portals of time and space. I’d be lucky to see that quality in our work, but it is some- thing we definitely strive towards. Architecture involves much more responsibilities than sculpture needs to, therefore the meetng point between the two may be a moving target. But they may set out after the same things.
PHOTO: Cade Hayes
L: Have you had any cool wildlife experiences working remotely?
J: Besides the coyotes rummaging through our camp as I write? They’ve been an incredible experience to live with. Spring is around the bend, which means snakes. That always seems to ratchet up the senses. Just about every encounter I have with wildlife I find some sort of fascination with.
L: Can you talk about Dust’s idea of design/ build?
J: Our idea of Design-Build is mainly rooted in the craft of an architect as a master builder. We focus on this so that the details are ex- ecuted impeccably, and the vision and intent is held by the same entity from initial sketch to final product. It is through the process of making or building that we hone our skills as craftsmen and designers, allowing us to solve problems more effectively and elegantly.
L: Your most recent project is building a hand crafted 765sq ft house, can you talk about the ideas and inspiration behind the design?
J: Our experiences, time spent in nature, and memories all coalesce and manifest themselves in each creative process we embark on. The ideas and inspiration for Casa Caldera came through a back and forth with the owner, and from our time spent visiting the site. Political, social, and economic environments also played a major factor in how the house was to be designed. We ultimately respond
to all of these factors as gracefully as we could. The location, geography, and orientation of the land set our first limitations. In how we respond to the sun, and open up to the view sheds, along with the owner’s desire for no air conditioning and wood burning fuel for heat, this dictated the choice of mass earthen walls, and the eventual size of the openings. For this we chose a red pulverized lava rock, mixed with cement that makes up an 18” thick wall. This was derived from the geomorphological settiLng, which used to be sites to several calderas in the area during the Jurassic periods.
The Social/Political climate of the region the project is based in gave us another set of limitations. It needed to be secure, and be out of sight from migrants and narcotracfficantes moving through the valley and watersheds. The home responds to seasonal solar conditions, and wind flow for natural ventilation. It will sustain off-grid, and collect the rainwater for re-use. The security shutters and barn doors completely fortify the house, while also doubling as the manual solar shading device at the openings. Our goal was to blend it into the environment as best we could, while creating a point of seamless connection to it’s surroundings.
Lead Photo: Bill Timmerman