Organic Art-itecture: Dream Home Inspiration From Mexico

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Javier Senosiain is a Mexican architect who designs amazingly beautiful homes that look like something out of a fantasy world. He works with principles of Architectura Organica (Organic Architecture), a way of integrating buildings with the surrounding landscape and inspiring those who live there to be in tune with nature. The idea is to create an area adapted for humans, according to our environmental, physical and psychological needs.

Senosiain’s designs are curved, light, and above all creative: the forms and materials are so unusual and colourful in one of his works, you are literally living inside a piece of art. His designs include whales, snakes, sharks, shells, and even peanuts. None of them use any straight lines, and they are made from a material called ferro-cement (cement, sand and mortar, poured on to shaped steel rods). This gives the designer’s trademark space-age continuity between walls, roof and floor. The material has the added bonus of becoming stronger when bent.

“Curved aspects are more harmonious,” Senosiain explains in an interview with Mexicanal TV. “Straight lines were created by man. But look at bird’s nests, rabbit holes, caves, shells; these things are always curved.” Senosiain is inspired by nature, and has always looked for ways to incorporate spirals, circles and curves into his designs, saying they are “more human.”

In considering the design of a building, “the orientation and the location [of the house] are very important,” he says. No two designs are the same, so when you take into account he started doing this back in 1985, you can see why he has a pretty impressive portfolio. One thing his designs have in common is a unique style clearly inspired by Gaudi, the architect famous for designing the breathtaking Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain. He also had a passion for integrating nature, architecture and art to create unique buildings that caused a sensation.

Below are just a few of Senosiain’s most inspirational designs.

The Organic House, Mexico, 1985

8This was the architect’s first ‘organic house’. On his website, Senosiain writes passionately: “The organic house is born with the idea of creating an area adapted for man. Its origin is in nature, because it looks for areas similar to the maternal womb, to animal shelters, to those of man, who in the beginning, adopted the caverns without modifying its environment, to an igloo and to all the friendly spaces and concave that recall the arms of the mother that cuddles the child. We look for continuous, wide, integral, light-releasing and changing form spaces that follow the natural pace of man’s movements, spaces where the integrated furniture facilitates the movement.”

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El Nido De Quetzalcoatl (Quetzalcoatl’s nest), 2007

12Quetzalcoatl is a feathered serpent in Meso-American mythology. ‘Quetzalcoatl’s Nest’ is an amazing condo with ten apartments set in woodland. Senosiain claims the design was inspired by accident: “This project was developed in a 5,000 m2 irregular piece of land and along the land, several caves were found,” he says. “One day, I thought that the mouth of the cave resembled a snake’s head with open jaws. We decided then to place a tail and call it Quetzalcoatl.” He adds: “The land remained almost intact because it was only touched where the body of Quetzalcoatl rests.”

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Nautilus, 2006

2This shell-shaped dream home is located near Mexico City and was commissioned by a couple who said they wanted something ‘unconventional’. It is a stunningly beautiful, large conch structure that feels spacious and airy thanks to light pouring in from above (and through the awesome wall of colored stained glass in the lounge area).

Senosiain talks about the structure in his trademark psychedelic way: “when entering from the outside…a space experience is generated…neither the walls nor the floor or the ceiling are parallel. It is a fluid space in three dimensions where you can perceive the continuous dynamic of the fourth dimension as you walk in spiral on the stairs, with a sense of floating over the vegetation. The creative process has been interesting, recreational, fun.”

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The Shark, 1990

13The Shark is Senosiain’s most controversial work, and comprises a complex labyrinth of rooms and interconnecting carpeted tunnels. He explains: “The monolithic structure is of ferro-cement, the half-buried bedrooms work as foundation avoiding the reversing of the study that was built in the upper part facing Los Remedios National Park.” The name and the evolution of the project, like Quetzacoatl’s nest, came by pure chance: “During the building process the workers started to call it The Shark, that is why I decided to place a fin,” Senosiain explains.

Other works (gallery):

These and other amazing constructions can be found on Senosiain’s website.

The ‘Amoeba House’

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‘The Kiss’

'The Kiss'

The satellite house complex

The satellite house complex

‘Flower House’

'Flower House'

‘Mexican Whale’

'Mexican Whale'


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