At first glance, Casa Nayaá gives very little away. From the street, it sits quietly behind a five-metre-high historic façade in Oaxaca’s city centre, its presence almost deliberately understated. It’s only once you step inside that the project reveals its real ambition — not to impress, but to slow you down.
Designed by RootStudio for a local Oaxacan family, Casa Nayaá rises from what was once an empty lot, reimagined over more than two years into a carefully calibrated domestic retreat. Architecture, interiors and local fabrication are treated as a single, continuous gesture. The intention, as the studio describes it, was simple but exacting: to turn the everyday into experience.
The scale is intimate — just seven rooms, open communal spaces and a rooftop terrace — yet the house feels generous rather than constrained. Traditional housing logic is reinterpreted rather than replicated, allowing the building to sit comfortably within the historic fabric of the city while quietly introducing contemporary comfort. There’s a respect here for the neighbourhood’s rhythm and domestic scale, something many new interventions struggle to achieve.
The name Nayaá, meaning “green” in Zapotec, is more than symbolic. From the rooftop terrace, the surrounding city unfolds in layers: the foliage of the Ethnobotanical Garden, the domes of Santo Domingo, tiled roofs and cantera stone. These views are carefully framed, filtering into daily life through measured openings and generous ceiling heights. Light, breeze and shadow do most of the work, favouring calm over spectacle.
Entry into the house is intentionally restrained. A solid wooden door opens onto a semi-covered courtyard that acts as the home’s quiet centre. Water and shade soften the transition into the open-plan living and dining areas, spaces designed for lingering rather than formality. Built-in furniture is used throughout, merging with walls and slabs so that nothing feels excessive or ornamental. A long communal table anchors the home, reinforcing the idea of shared, unhurried living.
Each room offers a slightly different spatial experience. Some stretch upward into double-height volumes, others remain grounded and close, while lofted spaces extend functionality without losing intimacy. A pigmented pool, lit from above by a skylight, introduces a moment of relief from the valley heat — thermal, visual and tactile all at once.
What stands out most is the consistency of material language. Polished cement floors in soft green tones, lime plaster, regional stone and naturally finished timber appear throughout, ageing quietly rather than demanding attention. Carpentry and metalwork, produced by local workshops, ensure continuity across surfaces, lighting and fittings. Everything responds to use, not display.
Environmental control is handled almost entirely through passive means: thermal mass, orientation, overhangs and lattice screens. Lighting is warm and adjustable, designed in-house to complement Oaxaca’s particular quality of light. It’s a system that feels intuitive rather than engineered, where structure, furniture and textiles all work together.
Casa Nayaá doesn’t attempt to redefine its context — it adds to it. Grounded in collaboration and craft, the project feels deeply rooted in how life unfolds within its walls. Thresholds preserve silence, light moves slowly across surfaces, and spaces invite pause. In that balance between shade and breeze, enclosure and openness, the house fulfils architecture’s most essential role: to support daily life with clarity, care and quiet generosity.
Credits
Images: ©Pacu
