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Mansfield House

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2008, NINE DEGREES architecture + design. 869 Forest Willow Cir.

The arced gray stucco walls of the house’s parabolic-curved plan are like the layers of a sliced onion: the inner rings slip up, and the outer rings slide away. Architect César Molina and his associates bathed these interior layers in soft reflected light, mediating the intense West Texas sun.

The Mansfield House is located in the Willows subdivision, which lies in the former flood plain of the Rio Grande on the Texas side of the Texas–New Mexico border. Historically, this territory contained the agricultural fields of El Paso’s upper valley; farming is still practiced along W. Sunset Road. The flat flood plain is verdant and lush, an oasis in the dry, mountainous desert through which the river courses. The opening of Elephant Butte Dam on the Rio Grande, 120 miles north of El Paso, in 1916 ended the seasonal flooding that historically replenished the river valley, making it feasible to build in the former flood plain.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Don Haskins Recreation Center (Westside Community Park and Recreation Center)
Temple Mount Sinai
Kern Place Neighborhood
McKelligon Canyon Amphitheater
University of Texas at El Paso (Texas School of Mines and Metallurgy)

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "Mansfield House", [El Paso, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-02-EP42.

Print Source

Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains, and West, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019, 494-494.

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