This house located in Tepoztlán has an artisanal base, made of Texcal stone, occupied by part of the house’s program.
Project Name: Albino Ortega House
Studio Name: Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura
Location: Tepoztlán, Morelos
Program: House
Project: Rozana Montiel
Collaborator: Alin V. Wallach, Ombeline de Laage
Constructor: Max García
Built: 2014-2017
Photographs: Sandra Pereznieto
It changes from an outside hermetic façade to a great open space that integrates the garden’s exuberant vegetation. Stone and wood predominate. Surfaces covered in texcal stone and vegetation build habitable half-lit enclosures.
Water is present both inside and outside the house, refreshing all spaces, filling them with air and sound. Like a cloister, the tour of the house intertwines interior and exterior all the way to the terrace and the great open garden.
The main room stands out as a wooden floating house on the second floor; and on the first floor there is an ambulatory pond. The house combines different intimate spaces with enjoyment of nature and the exterior pool as well as a small secret garden home to a plum tree peeking behind a stonewall at the bottom of the main garden are perfect examples of this.
Rozana Montiel
Rozana Montiel is founder and director of the Mexico-based architectural firm ROZANA MONTIEL | ESTUDIO DE ARQUITECTURA specialized on architectural design, artistic re-conceptualizations of space, and the public domain. The studio works on a wide variety of projects in different scales and layers that range from the city to the book, the artefact and other micro-objects.
Montiel holds an MA in Architectural Theory and Criticism from the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya UPC (Spain, 2000), and a BA with Honors in Architecture and Urban Planning from the Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico, 1998).
Her career has been recognized by different awards. She was recently winner of the ‘Best Luxury Architect Studio in Mexico’ given by Luxury Lifestyle Awards 2021. She also obtained honorable mention of the “International Fassa Bortolo Prize for Sustainable Architecture 2021” for the “Court” project. In 2019, she was the recipient of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture granted by the Cité de l ’Architecture, Paris. In 2016, she was the winner of the Emerging Voices Award from The Architectural League of New York, among others. In 2018, she won the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) granted by Illinois Institute of Chicago and she published her book “UH: Common Spaces in Housing Units”.
She will participate soon in the 2nd Architecture and Landscape Biennale Versailles 2022, “TERRE! LAND IN SIGHT!”
