Nominally a residential development and land regeneration project, the 494-acre (200-hectare) nature reserve known as Reserva Peñitas has, in recent years, emerged as something more exciting: a hotbed of contemporary Mexican architecture. Peñitas is located two hours west of Mexico City, near the lakeside town Valle de Bravo, itself a popular getaway for the capital’s well-to-do. There, exemplary water conservation practices are often paired with bold experimentation around domestic forms. The renowned architects Fernanda Canales, Hector Barroso, and Javier Sánchez (founding partner of the studio JSa), among others, have designed innovative weekend houses in the enclave.
JSa’s latest addition to the area, a family retreat named Casa Marte, completed in 2024, plays with the idea of what a country home can look like. Casa Marte straddles seemingly paradoxical extremes: The design distills the dwelling down to its abstract essence (a physical manifestation of a child’s “A”-shaped drawing of a house), while also complicating it with three freestanding volumes in lieu of a single building. If that sounds gratuitously conceptual, in reality the resulting mini cluster is a sensible concession to the site, a large piece of land encompassing two distinct facets—a promontory offering long views of the valley and distant sierras and, past a ravine, a forested section. As quietly spectacular as the architecture is, Casa Marte’s forms defer fully to the awe-inducing scenery of the surrounding oak-covered boulders, serene creeks, and, most majestically, the quiescent Xinantécatl volcano—one of Mexico’s highest peaks. In a way, the house’s structures are promontories, too, their gabled silhouettes jutting out on platforms carefully inserted into the terrain to maximize the project’s panoramic value.
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