Lakeside house combines traditional materials with dramatic spaces in Mexico

This new lakeside house in Mexico’s Toluca De Lerdo has a view across Lake Miguel Alemán, a scenic body of water created in 1954 after a dam was built across the region’s Tonto River. Taking inspiration from traditional Mexican architecture, Central de Arquitectura has crafted a sprawling, low-slung villa on the plot, with design elements that emphasise a route down to the water’s edge. 

Lakeside house blends old and now to dramatic effect

The new house mixes materials like hardwood and red brick with cast concrete and frameless glass windows. The entrance leads through a reclaimed wooden gate and leads to a courtyard where a view of the lake is framed between two brick walls, and a cascade of terracotta tiles. 

Steps guide visitors to the main living area, a ziggurat-like configuration that appears monumental and as solid as the landscape itself. An open plan living, dining and kitchen is set in the physical and spiritual centre of the house, bracketed by sliding glass walls and looking out across the infinity pool to the lake beyond. 

The views of distant mountains appear to float above the twin bodies of water, integrating the entire house into the landscape. The principal bedroom is set alongside the main living area, with a view partly screened by planting, while additional rooms are set on the floor above. 

These spaces include a bunk room, and another guest suite, with secondary sitting areas and the main kitchen tucked away halfway down the stepwell-like outdoor staircase arrangement.

Beneath the pool deck is another level, this time housing a firepit and external seating area, with a shallow grassy slope leading down to the shores of the lake. Here, the principal material is concrete, creating a counterpoint to the more traditional roofing and brick on the upper levels, hinting at the structure that anchors the house to its site.

The architects describe La Peña House as a ‘canvas where open baroque nature and modern simplicity can play’. Established in 1998 by José Sánchez and Moisés Ison, Central de Arquitectura combines property development with design, maintaining a high level of detail and specification for every scale of project. 

CentraldeArquitectura.com