Miguel Ángel Aragonés’s house in Mexico City is spread out over nearly 11,000 square feet, but the designer doesn’t occupy much of it. He and his wife, Ana, who is CEO of his firm, spend most of their time in two places: the principal bedroom and a dining/living room where they sprawl on enormous sectional furnishings while watching films or TV. When their granddaughter, Emilia, visits, she sleeps with them, leaving the other four bedrooms unoccupied.

Miguel’s home doubles down on the features that have characterized his 36-year career. The three-story building gets its name, Rombo III, from the sharp geometry of its walls. There’s ample breathing space, both indoors and out. It’s surrounded, and in some areas completely covered, by greenery. It has a partially indoor pond and an extravagant central staircase. And it’s brilliantly—on a sunny day, blindingly—white.

The white is “a reflection of space,” says Miguel. “And it’s never just white: When it’s gray outside, it’s like the mood of the day. Over there in the shadows, the white looks a little blue, and outside, with the vegetation, the white looks green.”

The walls are made of stucco, sand, and cement, while the floors are travertine from Spain. Keeping the house white is a challenge. When a visitor arrives, an assistant divests him of his shoes, obliging him to wear leather slippers from Zara Home. Miguel refers to Jessica, his cleaning woman, as “the soul of the house.” The residue of the city’s pollution, particularly in the rainy season, is a struggle. “We have impeccable maintenance,” says the designer.

“A house should give you security and take you away from the hysteria and chaos of the city.”
—Miguel Ángel Aragonés, designer and resident

The house is in the Bosques de las Lomas section, where high-rise luxury apartment buildings and private homes were developed in the 1980s and 1990s. “Given the diversity of the terrains and the views, it’s an ideal place to make architecture,” says Miguel, 57, who has wavy salt-and-pepper hair, a goatee, and eyes the color of a cloudless sky. “It’s semi-mountainous and abundantly green. It’s one of the most privileged places in Mexico City.”

In the indoor sections of the house, with piped-in music selected by Miguel and views of trees and bushes, you feel as though you’re not in the city. Once outside on the patios and terraces, however, skyscrapers encroach and the tap-tap-tap of a construction project across the street is audible. “The city always wins,” says Miguel. He characterizes Mexico City as “chaotic, noisy, smelly,” and one of his greatest challenges in designing homes here is to compose a sense of security that takes a resident away from all that. The city’s abundant vegetation helps. “There’s humidity and exuberance to all the greenery,” he says.

As in many of Miguel’s projects, at night the house is lit by LED bulbs the colors of different flavors of Jell-O. “It complements the night,” he explains. “We use the walls as if they contain spotlights. There are a lot of contrasts.”

“With color, you transform, change the frequency, and breakdown the constancy of a space.”
—Miguel Ángel Aragonés

Although he has been a designer for decades, Miguel is primarily an autodidact and never completed a degree. He went to university for two trimesters, which he describes as “traumatic.” To this day, he has nightmares that he is back in school: “I dream that they fail me in courses and they don’t let me do my projects.” Miguel works with licensed engineers, but emphasizes that despite his lack of credentials, the International Academy of Architecture designated him a professor. “There are fewer than ten Mexicans who have that honor,” he says.

In 2014, Miguel found himself engulfed in a scandal when a house he designed for Enrique Peña Nieto, president of Mexico at the time, and his wife, Angélica Rivera, turned out to be the property of Grupo Higa, a holding company that had been awarded significant contracts by the government.

Although Miguel himself was never accused of any wrongdoing, the house he designed became a symbol of corruption, long considered rampant and insidious in Mexico. Miguel received threats—“verbal, physical, and emotional,” he says—and considers it a “convulsive and sad moment” in his career.

“Sometimes there are obstacles. You have to turn around and continue to do your work,” he says. “My job is to make beauty from space.”

Project Credits:

Architect: Taller Aragonés

Structural and Civil Engineer: Jose Nolasco

Lighting: Taller Aragonés and Ilumileds

Sound Engineering: Taller Aragonés and Bang & Olufsen

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