David Ortega Stacks a Two-Story Mexico City Penthouse Around a Steel Stair and a Pergola-Shaded Roof Terrace

Penthouses in new Mexico City buildings tend to fall into a familiar pattern: a big glass box, a terrace finished like a hotel deck, and furniture that reads like staging. David Ortega's Chihuahua Penthouse, completed in 2018 at the top of a new building in Colonia Roma, starts from the same raw ingredients of glazing, a roof and a two-level shell of about 300 m². It ends up somewhere warmer and more particular.

The interesting part is not one gesture. It is how much work the joinery, the stair and the roof terrace do together. Wood and concrete make up most of the palette, the furniture is kept sparse, and the built-in oak storage takes on the role that partitions and decoration usually fill. The result is an apartment that behaves like a house: it has a vertical spine, a garden on the roof, and rooms defined by what is built into their walls.

The Roof as an Outdoor Room

The roof terrace is the project's best argument. A slatted timber pergola stretches over a plain deck, and in afternoon sun it throws striped shadows across a timber table and benches. Bamboo and grasses fill the edges. The light control is basic, but it gives the space a ceiling, and that is what turns an exposed roof into a room you would want to sit in.

At dusk the mood changes. Globe lamps light the dining table in front of the glazed sliding doors, and the interior and terrace start to read as one continuous floor. In a dense neighborhood like Roma, where private outdoor space is scarce, giving the roof a dining table rather than a pair of loungers says a lot about how the owners are expected to live up here.

A Stair That Holds the Section Together

The black steel stair has timber treads and vertical balusters, and it rises above a herringbone floor with concrete planters beside it. It is the most strongly drawn element in the apartment, and Ortega uses it well. He does not bury it in a core. He places it in the living area, where it works as sculpture, as a screen, and as a place for plants.

The view down from the upper landing shows why this matters. Looking through the baluster rail and past a leafy plant to the seating area below, you read the double level as one connected space and not two stacked flats. The vertical balusters filter the view without closing it off, which is the right balance for a family home where you want to hear the floor below but not watch it.

A Yellow Wall Against Restraint

With natural finishes and minimal furniture as the brief, a single saturated yellow wall does a lot of work. Behind a grey sofa with timber legs, and beside built-in oak shelving, it warms the whole living zone and gives the room a focal plane that does not depend on objects.

This is a smart economy. Restrained interiors often collapse into beige neutrality. One committed color decision, set against oak and herringbone, gives the space personality while keeping the furniture count low. The grey upholstery is the quiet partner that keeps the yellow from tipping into novelty.

Joinery as Architecture

The oak storage walls are where the project really earns its keep. A grid of open cubbies sits above flush base cabinets, and a soft strip light washes the shelves, which hold plants and a family's toy dinosaurs. This is joinery designed for a lived-in home, not for a photograph, and it is better for it.

In the evening, the gridded shelving wall behind the oval dining table glows green under a branching pendant. The same storage system becomes a backdrop and a light source. When built-ins carry this much of the spatial identity, the loose furniture can stay minimal without the rooms feeling unfinished.

Private Rooms That Open Outward

The bedroom continues the logic. Full-height oak wardrobe doors handle storage as a single plane, and a glass door opens straight onto the terrace, where a globe light glows at dusk. Even the most private room gets direct access to the outdoors, which is rare in a city apartment and arguably the clearest measure of what this penthouse offers.

Plans and Drawings

The plans show the split clearly. The lower level holds the oval dining table on a round rug, a kitchen, bedroom and bath, all on herringbone. The upper level gives most of its area to the rooftop deck, with hexagonal planters, a lounge anchored by a colorful rug, and the stair void linking the two floors.

The interior elevations make it clear that this is a joinery-led project. The dining elevation sets the planted stair with floating treads next to the gridded timber storage wall and floor-to-ceiling glazing. A dedicated bar wall with a wine bottle grid, liquor shelf, pendants and four stools is detailed as carefully as any facade.

The sections tie the inside to the roof. One shows a living room with a wall-mounted television next to a covered terrace with a picnic table and a slim pergola roof. Another sets the planted terrace and its built-in bench against the yellow wall, the bookshelves and the floating stair. The bedroom elevation adds a navy wall, a timber headboard with a shelf, and an open walk-in closet.

Why This Project Matters

Mexico City's new residential buildings often hand buyers a shell and a view and leave the character to the furniture. Chihuahua Penthouse shows another approach. Invest in the fixed elements, meaning the stair, the storage walls and the pergola, and let them define the rooms. The design does its work through millwork and section, not through finishes applied after the fact.

It is not a radical project, and it does not try to be. What we value is its discipline: a limited palette, one bold color, a roof treated as a real room, and joinery built for a family. For anyone designing apartments at the top of a new building, it is a useful reminder that a penthouse succeeds when it works as a house in the sky, not as a showroom.

Chihuahua Penthouse by David Ortega. Colonia Roma, Mexico City, Mexico. Area: 300 m². Completed 2018. Photography by María Fernanda López. Construction by Arq. Roberto Salazar; supervision by Arq. Elías Hernández; home automation by Alfacústica with Ing. Fernando Herrera.

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