La Luz

By Edith Cherry and James See – September 19, 2019

Loop One NW (off Coors Blvd. NW),  Albuquerque, NM  87120

Access: Curbside photography only. Please respect residential privacy.

This residential complex is situated on a sloping plane with breathtaking views of the Rio Grande Bosque and Sandia Mountains.  The 96 townhomes are collected at the west edge of the slope leaving an uninterrupted natural landscape between the homes and the Sandia views.  The design followed three intentions:  (1) Respect the site; (2) Separate people from cars; and (3) Cluster homes around plazas.  These intentions were realized by (1) allowing each unit to have a view to the east; using common walls, not side yards, and developing landscaped areas between rows of units; (2) Most garages are located at the site edges and below some units, keeping roads to a minimum; and (3) allowing for gathering places, plazas, of a variety of sizes for use by the residents.

Built in a number of phases, the houses are constructed primarily of adobe bricks with pre-cast concrete edge beams.  The curved forms of the patio walls and staggering of units suggest additive forms of Ancestral Pueblo construction.  Some have called this contemporary architecture “Regional Modernism.”

Completed:  1967 
Architect:  Antoine Predock, FAIA (Master Site Plan and Units)
Addition completed: 1976
Architect of Units 8, 10, 12, 14:  Barker-Bol, Architects
Contractor:  varied by phase

Learn More:
Antoine Predock—La Luz

Antoine Predock, “La Luz . . . was the first complete project that I did on my own,” quoted in:
2000   Collins, Brad, ed., Antoine Predock, Houses, pp. 6, 14–29. Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York.

2018   Taylor, Anne, and Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, The Legacy of La Luz, Building Community with Respect for the Land. Sunstone Press, Santa Fe.

 9/13/19