Quetzalcóatl Park, located about an hour outside of Mexico City, is the sprawling, serpentine creation of Javier Senosiain Aguilar. Although started years ago in 2007, the park is still a work in progress. The water fixture, mosaiced and shaped like the head of a snake, spews water into a small reserve. A greenhouse is bathed in a shattered rainbow of light coming through a stained-glass roof. Its grassy mazes create vertiginous paths where visitors can lose themselves in the Mexican architect’s spiraling, psychedelic, and lush garden.
Quetzalcóatl Park, located about an hour outside of Mexico City, is the sprawling, serpentine creation of Javier Senosiain Aguilar | image © Archivo Arquitectura Orgánica
The Serpents of Senosiain
To speak of Senosiain’s work at large is to talk about the natural and animal worlds. One character that appears frequently is the snake, a pink cartoon of which is the slithering logo for the park. It’s fitting, as Quetzalcóatl is the name of a feathered serpent that appears in Aztec mythology. On the park grounds, a cream-colored serpent, covered in mosaic, creates a small waterfall that looks over the landscape surrounding the park. A curving amphitheater and zigzagging pathways invoke the animal in motion. There’s even a topiary sculpture that emerges from the grass in the shape of the two-fanged reptile.
on the park grounds, a cream-colored serpent, covered in mosaic, creates a small waterfall that looks over the landscape surrounding the park | image © Archivo Arquitectura Orgánica
Senosiain and ferrocement
Some of the organic structures that sit around the park get their organic shapes—where ceilings melt into the floor and the walls curve down to the ground—by a process frequently used by Senosiain: ferro-cement. It’s a system where metal rods are first placed for structure, like a skeleton. Then a wire mesh is used to create the sloping forms that are then covered in a mortar that makes the whole structure solid. In a 2019 piece in designboom on Senosiain’s organic house, the architect describes this process, saying, ‘the assembly of the ferrocement began on the template that looked like a skateboard track, forming the shell with a metallic skeleton, in which the rods were arranged in the form of rings, changing the height according to the space. next, the rods were spirally wound. at the end of the frame, two ropes of coop braided together were fixed, and then the concrete was thrown.’
some of the organic structures that sit around the park get their organic shapes by a process frequently used by Senosiain: ferro-cement | image © Edmund Sumner
Visiting Quetzalcóatl Park
Although the space is not, as of 2026, open to the public, visitors who want to inhabit Senosiain’s creation can book a tour of the space or even host an event on the park grounds. The Farm, one of the inhabitable spaces, was created with the intention of housing domestic animals. Now, the cozy nook, built into a grassy mound that emerges from the land, can be used for cocktail parties or intimate dinners.
the Farm, one of the inhabitable spaces, was created with the intention of housing domestic animals | image © Charlotte Lajarin
A rainbow greenhouse
On the property, a greenhouse provides a technicolor home to a lush garden. The space is formed in a spiral, a geometry that has often reappears in Senosiain’s work for its frequent occurrence in nature and flowing, curved shape. Moving through the curved walkways, the stone floors and the blooming plants are dappled in bright teals, reds, yellows, greens, and blues. At its center, a domed tessellation of glass covers a small circular pool that receives a trickle of water from a sloping trough decorated in red mosaic tiles.
on the property, a greenhouse provides a technicolor home to a lush garden | image © Airbnb Experience at Parque Quetzalcóatl
Building with the Earth
In describing Senosiain’s practice, unearthing why he would embark on such an ambitious project, Quetzalcóatl Park invokes the architect himself, quoting, ‘Human beings must not detach themselves from their primal impulses, from their biological being. They must remember that they originate from a natural source and that the search for their home cannot be separated from their roots; that is, they must avoid creating an unnatural habitat.’ Following these principles, the space forms amphitheaters, pools, and a greenhouse into the landscape instead of against it.
the space forms amphitheaters, pools, and a greenhouse into the landscape instead of against it | image © Luis Young
Javier Senosiain and the organic house
Quetzalcóatl Park is just one manifestation of Senosiain’s sensibility for undulating, brightly colored, and fantastic built worlds. El Tiburón (The Shark), built in 1990, is an extension of his private residence. With a curved glass window that resembles the mouth of the aquatic predator, it looks out onto Parque Nacional de los Remedios. Nearby to the park, El Nido de Quetzalcóatl is a snaking structure with round, porthole-like windows and a snake’s head, that holds 10 apartments, some of which can be booked on Airbnb. All of his creations invite the imaginative design enthusiast to wander through their depths and explore the mind of Senosiain himself.
one character that appears frequently is the snake, a pink cartoon of which is the slithering logo for the park | image © Archivo Arquitectura Orgánica
the spiral is a geometry that has often reappears in Senosiain’s work for its frequent occurrence in nature and flowing, curved shape | image © Archivo Arquitectura Orgánica
Quetzalcóatl Park is just one manifestation of Senosiain’s sensibility for undulating, brightly colored, and fantastic built worlds | image © Archivo Arquitectura Orgánica
describing Senosiain’s practice, unearthing why he would embark on such an ambitious project, Quetzalcóatl Park invokes the architect’s quote on human connection to nature | image © Francisco Llubert
project info:
project: Quetzalcóatl Park | @parquequetzalcoatl
architect: Javier Senosiain | @javiersenosiaina
start date: 2007
location: Naucalpan, State of Mexico
This article is part of designboom’s MODES OF HABITATION chapter, exploring how the spaces we inhabit can reshape the ways we live together. Discover more stories rethinking domesticity, shared living, and the many forms a home can take here.
The post inside the serpentine world of javier senosiain’s quetzalcóatl park appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.