A West Texas Couple Get a Rammed-Earth Addition That Syncs With the Landscape

When Cade Hayes and Jesús Edmundo Robles Jr. met a couple in Marfa wanting to design an addition to their austere adobe house, the founding duo of Dust Architects saw it as a homecoming. "Cade and my connection to West Texas is personal," says Robles. "We both graduated from Texas Tech, and Cade was born and grew up a few hours north. This desert and landscape is familiar—it’s home."

Now operating their architectural practice from the Sonoran Desert in Tucson, Arizona, Hayes and Robles have become known for their sensitive, site-specific works that often incorporate rammed-earth bricks. For the Marfa addition, the homeowners—a textile-design consultant and a vintage western wear purveyor—were keen for a design that would engage the Marfa landscape.