Nature Takes Center Stage at This Mountaintop Home in Mexico

In Valle de Bravo, Ignacio Urquiza and Ana Paula de Alba craft an elemental home that embraces its wild, cliffside site.

Jan 15, 2024 - 15:34
Nature Takes Center Stage at This Mountaintop Home in Mexico

In Valle de Bravo, Ignacio Urquiza and Ana Paula de Alba craft an elemental home that embraces its wild, cliffside site.

At Las Rocas, you always have two views: the lake and the rocks, which was the impetus for erasing the corners of the home.

At this home just a few hours outside Mexico City, the bathroom is built around a boulder. Trees grow through floors, and in the living room, striking views of rock walls makes it feel as though you’ve set out on a hike. In some ways, you have.   

"The geometry always appears different, but it"s unified through the hallways," says architect Ignacio Urquiza. "Sometimes these hallways don’t have any windows so you can feel the wind and the rain." 

Phoot by Onnis Luque

At Las Rocas, architect Ignacio Urquiza and interior designer Ana Paula de Alba sought to integrate nature as much as possible—allowing existing rock formations to define the space complemented by minimalist design elements.

"The houses are built around the rocks," says Casa B homeowner Santiago Ortiz Monasterio. "We love it. Urquiza adjusted to what was there, and we tried to preserve it as much as we could."

Photo by Alejandro Ramirez Orozco

Just getting to Las Rocas—a vegetation-rich, cliffside retreat that sits in the northern part of La Peña in Valle de Bravo, Mexico—requires some disconnecting from urban life. The compound consists of four separate weekend homes, and a small, cobblestone street leads to a central square, where homeowners leave their cars behind and trek along trails to get home.

"We were aiming to treat this as a super respectful place because of the natural environment we were touching," says Mexico City–based architect Ignacio Urquiza, who teamed up with his wife, interior designer Ana Paula de Alba, for the design of all four homes. They are a young couple with shared ideals about design who had been walking the area since they were kids. It is a special place to them, and they were adamant about preserving it. "You have to understand how to impact the context and give something back," Urquiza says.

Fully integrated with nature, the four homes that comprise Las Rocas complement rather than compete with nature. "We spent a week sitting there discussing if this project had to be super light and floating or heavy," says architect Ignaciou Urquiza. "And we decided to go heavy to generate lightness at the very end—trying to make the volumes floating."

"He really understood that we wanted inside—but also outside space," says one of the homeowners of Casa B, Federica de la Mora. "The house opens completely, so you’re both in the main dining room and outside."

Phoot by Onnis Luque

See the full story on Dwell.com: Nature Takes Center Stage at This Mountaintop Home in Mexico
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