A Force of Nature I

A FORCE OF NATURE

| BY TESS HEZLEP |

In the process of restoring several architecturally significant properties in the Los Angeles area, Xorin Balbes discovered a more purposeful design philosophy that leads to more conscious living: the SoulSpace.

Balbes, an architectural conservator, designer and philanthropist who is the founder of Xorin Homes, a design and architecture firm with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Maui, Hawaii, officially created his eight-stage SoulSpace process in 2011 when he published

Tucson-based architect Rick Joy creates buildings that bring the outside in.

In my family, whenever we wanted to celebrate or do something fun, we’d go into nature.

Growing up in Maine, Rick Joy spent a lot of time in the woods. “In my family, whenever we wanted to celebrate or do something fun, we’d go into nature,” the architect recalls. Later, when he moved to Tucson as a student, Joy took it upon himself to learn about his new environment. “It’s such an interesting place to learn about flora and fauna, the way desert plants grow to protect each other.”

A careful study of place also came to typify Joy’s approach to design. Since founding Studio Rick Joy in 1993, he has become known for blending contemporary forms with rich and locally sourced materials, and while each commission is different— Joy eschews the notion of a “signature style”—they all share a similar attention to place, in particular to plant life and the direction and quality of light.

For the Catalina House (1998), one of Joy’s early residential projects, the architect arranged three rammed earth volumes around a delicate bed of cacti and mesquites, careful not to damage any of the existing plants or trees during construction. He oriented the home’s airy living and entertaining spaces toward the Catalina Foothills and turned the west-facing private wing slightly to capture the glittering morning sun.

Similarly, the three squared volumes of the Desert Nomad House (2006) rest on a landscape of saguaro and ocotillo, the sun’s path defining their placement. From the bedroom, the rising sun illuminates a rock face at the top of the mountains, while from the main living space the early evening sun draws the eye toward the base of the mountain closest to the house.

Photo Courtesy of RLH Properties Joy’s studio gained acclaim for its quiet desert dwellings and over time the practice expanded, taking on architecture, interiors and planning projects around the globe, including luxury resorts that take design cues from their dramatic settings.

The Amangiri Resort and Spa in Utah (2008), which Joy designed in collaboration with Marwan Al-Sayed and Wendell Burnette, mirrors the ochre-colored flat-topped mesas that surround it, with hotel rooms rendered in thick concrete retreating into the hillside, each one framing a view of the desert, and a main pool configured around a striking stone escarpment.

More recently Studio Rick Joy worked on One&Only Mandarina, a luxury resort with private residences on a lush oceanfront parcel in Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit. The project, which opened in 2020, took over eight years to complete, its master plan dictated by giant white fig trees with substantial root systems, and its structures rendered from concrete, local stone and wood.

“The terrain was a challenge,” Joy says, referring to the dense rainforest that slopes into the Pacific. “Half of the hotel rooms are tree houses, ten meters above ground. The other half are grounded on cliffs and in edges with giant skylights that take in the canopies.”

Dappled light filters through glass walls of the hotel rooms and private villas, the jungle never far from view. The private villas feature wide living areas that open fully to terraces and swimming pools, some of which are cantilevered over the hillside and appear to float on the cobalt sea.

Despite ample open-air living and substantial use of glass, privacy is well maintained at the resort through dense green curtains of ferns and birds of paradise. Even viewed from the private beach below, the hillside structures are camouflaged by rich foliage, almost as if they were always there.

Clients who approach Joy often say it’s because they know he’s going to “bring nature in,” and he

The hillside structures are camouflaged by rich foliage, almost as if they were always there.

Photo Credit: Jeff Goldberg/Esto

considers this a great compliment. “I believe nature is the greatest luxury,” he says. “It’s one of those things that has driven my work for my entire career.”

At home in the Tucson bungalow Rick Joy shares with his family, there is a deck with yellow flowering trees where he likes to take calls. “I pace when I talk on the phone,” he says. He also walks 2.5 miles to work each way and enjoys being in the heart of town and running into friends on the street.

“You’d think I’d have this cool modern home, but we chose our house because of its proximity to one of the best markets in the world. That way if I’m making Tom Yum soup, and I need coconut milk, I can just go across the street.” Joy’s office is where he keeps his memorabilia and collectables, including his favorite Nakashima chair and hand-drawing table. “That’s where I do my hardcore work,” he says. Then he joins his associates in the studio and supervises the firm’s ongoing projects.

Joy credits his studio’s diverse mix of designers for the strong quality of work. “It’s enriching for everyone—I call it cross pollination,” he says. It seems apt that Joy uses the language of plant ecology to describe the collaborative nature of his practice; from the forests of Maine to the Sonoran Desert to the Mexican jungle, nature remains a constant inspirational force.

SOPHIE KALKREUTH