Nature Takes Center Stage at This Mountaintop Home in Mexico

Amy Dvorak
·2 min read
19

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 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. 

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.
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.

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."

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