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Cerused radiata pine wraps around the ceilings and walls. Native tepa timber lines the floors of the main wing, while the floors of the visitor wing feature native laurel.

A wall-mounted shelving system in the office creates a two-person desk.

“I wanted to change the kitchen,” Lyndsay says. “The cabinetry was too dark, so we wanted to lighten it up. At first, it was an orange wood—and we ended up painting it white to achieve this.”

Cutouts in the concrete slab floor allow for an indoor forest of taro, fig, and bamboo—and a subsurface drain connected to a perforated underground pipe slowly filters out excess moisture to the groundwater. The cabinets were custom designed by Nick Damner, while the refrigerator and dishwasher are by Thermador.

Architect Javier Senosiain created this remarkable home on a hilly site near Mexico City. “The green dune wraps itself around the inside spaces almost completely, rendering it almost invisible. From the outside, all one sees are grass, bushes, trees, and flowers,” he says.

The owner was motivated to build his own home to avoid a mortgage and to gain the know-how to undertake his own maintenance and repairs. “I was craving the personal challenge to cultivate a home for myself,” he says. “As it was the beginning of a new adventure, I wanted it to be personal. Also, practically speaking, if I built each piece of the home by hand, I would have a good sense of how to solve problems or improve it, without having to ask anyone else to journey through the forest, down the trail, and up the cliff to make an adjustment.”

At night, the quiet drama of the shed roof's angles glows against the darkened forest.