Nautilus-shaped house

Mexico City's Senosiain Arquitectos built this Gaudiesque, nautilus-shaped home for a couple to live in.

It's more of a sculpture than a dwelling. Taking cues from a Nautilus shell, the house is put together using ferrocement construction, a technique involving a frame of steel-reinforced chicken wire with a special two-inch-thick composite of concrete spread over it, resulting in a structure that's earthquake-proof and maintenance-free.

The open concept inside the house is dominated by smooth surfaces, spiral stairs and natural plantings that makes the inhabitants feel like they're living inside a snail who swallowed the entire contents of somebody's back yard. While the house is surrounded on three sides by the bustling Mexico City, its West side (where most of its portal-style windows are located) has a breathtaking view of the mountains.

Link

[#1 posted by OM , February 21, 2008 8:36 AM]

...You know, with that stained glass mural in the opening of the conch, and the steeple effect the spike at the top imposes, my first impression was that this was some sort of church in any other place except Mexico. Still, it's really a beautiful concept!

[#2 posted by noen , February 21, 2008 8:41 AM]

Now THAT is cool.

[#3 posted by jeffmontreal , February 21, 2008 8:45 AM]

Reminds me of some of the crazy hobbit homes in ricas y famosas http://www.amazon.com/Daniela-Rossell-Famosas-Mexico-1994-2001/dp/8475065198

[#4 posted by Kit10inDublin , February 21, 2008 9:10 AM]

Somehow I can see Troy McClure living here.

best amazing house I've ever seen is on one of the canry Island, Lanzarote, where the artist, architect, activist Cesar Manrique built his home and a theatre within lava bubbles that had cooled from a volcanic eruption on the island approx 100 years earlier.

http://www.hoho.co.uk/html/manrique_fundacion.html

[#5 posted by Bob , February 21, 2008 9:19 AM]

To me it's reminiscent of Roger Dean's designs for the same basic kind of building methods. Unfortunately his own website does not have an exterior view of the model of his basic design, but does have a series of interior views of the model.

[#6 posted by jrishel , February 21, 2008 9:49 AM]

Aw, I was hoping for a steampunk house shaped like Captain Nemo's Nautilus.

[#7 posted by Wingo , February 21, 2008 10:52 AM]

Damn. That is one seriously cool dwelling. I would move to Mexico City to live in that piece of awesomeness.

[#8 posted by Strange Quark Star , February 21, 2008 1:01 PM]

Looks like one of the houses in the City of the Ancients in Final Fantasy VII!

[#9 posted by SomeGuy , February 21, 2008 1:43 PM]

I to thought it would be Captn. Nemo's Nautilus when I read the title.

Oh well, this is pretty cool to. Too bad the driveway doesn't look like a big slime trail.

[#10 posted by mikey p , February 21, 2008 3:15 PM]

nipper the hermit crab from banjo-kazooie lived in one of these. it was well-made, too: i jumped and jumped on it and it never cracked.

[#11 posted by skadishell , February 21, 2008 4:24 PM]

Most definitely my kind of home - how gorgeous. I'm a shell fanatic and do a lot of shell art, how neat to live in a home shaped just like a nautilus shell, or perhaps a conch shell. etc. This is what I call total creative design!

[#12 posted by NikFromNYC , February 21, 2008 9:31 PM]

This sort of thing was the norm ideal of the original Whole Earth Catalog (the eventually drove Stewart Brand crazy, as in stark raving mad), which was inspired by Bucky Fuller, yet also included a firm handshake with Paolo Soleri, a seemingly benevolent guru of an architect in Arizona (?), in which volunteers showed up to build a dream city.

http://images.google.com/images?ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&q=arcosanti+paolo+soleri&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

God that image is beautiful though. Almost nothing is know about Gaudi himself, the guy who had a whole country (Spain) support his ideas.