CAMPO is a social app(aratus) superimposed on the natural landscape of Sierra Madre.

The tourist paradox
The tourist longs for solitary walks on the beach but shares this yearning with a mass of other tourists.
The tourist dreams of the exotic and strange but demands comfort.
The tourist wants to experience an unspoiled and wild nature but the tourist landscape is by definition a constructed one.
How to design for a paradox?

Welcome to CAMPO!
CAMPO is an informed cartesian system that programmes and organizes the natural landscape of Sierra Madre offering a varied range of experiences to its visitors.
An orthogonal grid of 200mx200m divides the Sierra Madre in square shaped sectors. Each sector is dedicated to an activity. The tourist experience at CAMPO is organized according to the desired degree of social interaction – from communal living to total isolation – and to the level of intactness of the landscape – from artificial to wilderness.

Program levels at CAMPO:
Sectors A – existing beach
Sectors B – communal living and family oriented activities
Sectors C – group adventurous activities
Sectors D – individual and adult only activities
Sectors E – unprogrammed. Untouched nature.

B4 Entrance
B5 Communal Building
B6 Hiking level 1
C3 Hiking level 2
C4 Bird watching
C5 Rock Climbing
C6 Botanical Route
D3 Combat Zone
D4 Individual Isolation
D5 Nudity forest
D6 Cruising
D7 Wild Camping
C7, D2, E1, E2, E3 Unprogrammed sectors. Untouched nature.
A4, A5, A6 Beach

The lines of the grid are materialized by the precise – and temporary – erasure of nature, creating pathways that connect all the sectors. This minimal physical infrastructure is complemented by a gps system that enables tourists to orient. Despite that, getting lost is also an option.

Referenced to the monastic typology the communal building is the heart of CAMPO. The less adventurous hardly ever leave its limits and pass their days fraternizing with other tourists and enjoying the comfort of the common facilities.

Reversibility
Tourism is an activity with a considerable impact on its social, physical and natural context. Besides being built based on the principles of self-sustainability, CAMPO adds another strategy: reversibility. If not in use, the pathways will be swallowed by the dense forest leaving no trace of ever having existed. The communal building, and other small buildings dispersed across the territory, are built according to the principles of circular economy: simple and standardized wooden and metallic structures that can be dismantled and reassembled somewhere else.

program: tourism architecture: João Fagulha, Raquel Oliveira client: Tafer Hotels and Resorts year: 2017 location: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico status: competition