Casa Betania

Casa Betania wraps a single family home around five courtyards in Xolol, in the Huasteca region of San Luis Potosí, México, where the surrounding treetops set the tone for the whole design. Completed in 2018 by NAAG Arquitectura, the house treats its tropical setting as the starting point rather than a problem to be sealed off, organizing daily life around open voids that pull air, greenery, and shifting light deep into the plan.

The five courtyards do the structural work of distribution. Under a wooden roof, the rooms are arranged through the voids that define how the house is read and crossed, so that movement between spaces always passes alongside a patch of sky or planting. This courtyard logic has a long history in hot climates, where an interior open space cools adjacent rooms and gives privacy without closing the home off from its surroundings. The courtyard house remains one of the most reliable answers to the demands of warm, humid regions.

Filtering the Huasteco Heat

Wood panels and vertical reed cane form a cover that brings shade and shelter from the strong Huasteco heat. Rather than relying on heavy walls or sealed glass, the screens slow the sun before it reaches the living surfaces, a quieter approach that fits the materials and climate of the Huasteca region. Solar light filtered through the reed cane creates changing patterns and shadows across the surfaces of the house, turning a practical shading layer into something that marks the passing hours.

For a house of this kind, the real design challenge is comfort without mechanical force. Cross ventilation through the voids, deep shade from the cane screens, and the thermal break offered by the courtyards work together so the home stays livable through the day. The use of timber and reed also keeps the building tied to local craft and to renewable, low-impact passive design traditions, where the building form itself does most of the climate control.

What gives Casa Betania its character is the way these decisions reinforce one another. The courtyards organize the plan, the screens temper the light, and the wooden roof holds it all under one calm gesture, leaving a home that feels rooted in its place and shaped by the forest that surrounds it.