Puerto Escondido, a tropical expanse of steep hills and big waves on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, is blossoming into a veritable design destination. A growing local and international artistic community is coalescing around the Mexico Design Fair, Bosco Sodi’s Casa Wabi Arts Center, and Meridiano, a new gallery devoted to durational, site-specific work. All these surfers, artists, and collectors need places to stay, of course. And architect Ludwig Godefroy has led creative new design for innovative hotels and residences amid the region’s lush landscape.

“This is a tropical area of Mexico,” Godefroy said. “We don’t need to protect ourselves from the cold.” Nor, he added, from air pollution or other “contamination that comes from a city.” To his mind, a local vernacular requires shade from the sun and shelter from the rain. “So why should we have the mythic facade and live the way you live in Mexico City or New York?”

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