This Mexican home is designed like a viewing platform
Hill House by Manuel Cervantes Estudio is a low and minimalist Mexican home nestled into its leafy site

Nestled in a richly green, wooded area on the slopes of a ravine, Hill house is the latest residential offering by Mexican architecture studio Manuel Cervantes Estudio. Seamlessly embedded into the landscape and set partially underground, this Mexican home was designed around its vistas, and serves as a contemporary, minimalist viewing platform from which to enjoy the surrounding nature.
Another key factor that drove the design solution and building placement was climate, which can range from hot to pretty cold throughout the year in this part of rural Mexico. Large openings are balanced by timber screens and pergolas, which filter light but also block chilly gusts. The openings’ orientation was indeed largely dictated by the local light and winds, as well as the site's terrain. ‘The structure is semi-buried to the north and exposed towards the south, which is the orientation with the best views and where the largest windows are located,’ the architecture team explain.
A pathway at the entrance of the site leads down to the house, where an entry courtyard connects the composition's two key volumes – one containing the communal areas and master bedroom, and another with four more bedrooms. Internal, open-air patios dot the floorplan, offering light and a connection with the outdoors throughout the extensive property. Meanwhile, a pool house and a separate family room are located in separate, smaller volumes, linked to the main house by generous terraces and walkways.
Cervantes’ masterful mix of masonry walls, metallic beams and exposed wood – a combination he’s often used in the past, for example in his own home in Mexico City – affords a tactile, organic feel both inside and out. This feeling of being close to nature and natural materials is underlined by a series of strategies that promote sustainable architecture, such as rain water collection and reuse, adopted for the construction.
Balancing an extensive programme and generous size with a discreet, low profile, large outdoor areas and windows, and an environmentally friendly attitude, Hill House becomes just what its authors intended – the perfect Mexican home from which to enjoy its picturesque setting.
INFORMATION
manuelcervantes.com.mx
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
-
This Rocky Mountains house is a ski-lover's dream escape
Bozeman, a Rocky Mountains house by Frederick Tang Architecture, is a contemporary retreat that sits low in its natural, Montana setting
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Tour the Albuquerque Foundation, Portugal’s new ceramics hub, where the historic and contemporary meet
A new cultural destination dedicated to ceramics, The Albuquerque Foundation by Bernardes Arquitetura opens its doors in Sintra, Portugal
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
The Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands on creating an electronic score for historical drama, Mussolini
Tom Rowlands has composed ‘The Way Violence Should Be’ for Sky’s eight-part, Italian-language Mussolini: Son of the Century
By Craig McLean Published
-
La Cuadra: Luis Barragán’s Mexico modernist icon enters a new chapter
La Cuadra San Cristóbal by Luis Barragán is reborn through a Fundación Fernando Romero initiative in Mexico City; we meet with the foundation's founder, architect and design curator Fernando Romero to discuss the plans
By Mimi Zeiger Published
-
Enjoy whale watching from this east coast villa in Mexico, a contemporary oceanside gem
East coast villa Casa Tupika in Riviera Nayarit, Mexico, is designed by architecture studio Rzero to be in harmony with its coastal and tropical context
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Mexico's long-lived football club Atlas FC unveils its new grounds
Sordo Madaleno designs a new home for Atlas FC; welcome to Academia Atlas, including six professional football fields, clubhouses, applied sport science facilities and administrative offices
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Discover Casa Roja, a red spatial exploration of a house in Mexico
Casa Roja, a red house in Mexico by architect Angel Garcia, is a spatial exploration of indoor and outdoor relationships with a deeply site-specific approach
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
HW Studio’s Casa Emma transforms a humble terrace house into a realm of light and space
The living spaces in HW Studio’s Casa Emma, a new one-bedroom house in Morelia, Mexico, appear to have been carved from a solid structure
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
An Oaxacan retreat offers a new take on the Mexican region's architecture
This Oaxacan retreat, Casa Caimán by Mexican practice Bloqe Arquitectura, is a dreamy beachside complex on the Pacific coast
By Léa Teuscher Published
-
Take a plunge at Brandílera House on the Mexican Pacific Coast
Brandílera House by Manuel Cervantes Estudio is a Mexican Pacific Coast retreat making the most of its views and green site
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Step inside Quinto Sol house, a verdant oasis in Mexico's Pacific Coast
Quinto Sol house by architect Cristina Grappin blends indoors and outdoors in a masterful architectural composition in the Mexican countryside
By Ellie Stathaki Published