Nautilus House

A young family tired of their conventional home yearned to live in something a little more intergrated with nature. Their wish was granted by Javier Senosiain of Senosiain Arquitectos, a celebrated Mexican architect whose work is considered both pioneering and controversial in the field of bioarchitecture. Instead of a boring old practical square dwelling, they now live inside a giant psychedelic mollusk shell.

According to Senosiain, the Nautilus House is earthquake-proof and maintenance-free. While not the best use of space and decidedly short on storage, it’s hard not to be envious of the family who gets to come home to a wonderland straight out of a Lewis Carroll novel. Using a technique called ferrocement construction, a frame of steel-enforced chicken wire is coated with concrete, allowing for rounded, natural curves, the inside is full of spirals, circles, and organically shaped rooms that mimic the concave chambers one would expect inside a giant mollusk. Hundreds of small rainbow-colored stained-glass windows line spaces of ceiling and walls alike, sunning lush grass that surrounds flower-shaped couches. Using a pairing of artistic freedom and attention to detail, the Nautilus House is a wonderous demonstration of creating human abodes using nature’s design and possibly a mind-altering substance.