SKEN

The aim of the project is to build a commercially serviceable holiday villa, providing accommodation for the several families. The site is located on the southwest of Costa Rica, above the city Dominical. The site lying within reach of several natural national parks located on the Pacific beaches and in the surrounding mountainous forest landscape. The jungle in this part of Central America descends from higher altitudes very steeply to the coast. In the sense of local construction regulations, it is not possible to build a large hotels with regard to nature conservation . . .

The site for the future villa is located in the middle of the jungle, at an altitude of 200 m, with the minimal land size devoted for the building itself. The part of the site is horizontal terrace prepared for the construction. Remaining terrain around the horizontal terrace and the access road is very steep, wooded by a dense jungle.
The concept of our proposal is based on an analysis of the business and investment intention and location, as well as on the long-term experience of local residents with the construction close to the ocean, mountains and rain forest. The terrace of the future building provides a magnificent panoramic view of the ocean in the east, south and west. The location of the land at the foot of the mountains will provide the fresh air, blowing practically constantly from the ocean. This air flow creates the necessary refreshing moment in the local warm and humid climate and at the same time, when the structure is properly designed, it can remove the insects from the interior.

The building is designed to maximize the panoramic views. Different rooms provide a different panoramic views from the east to the west. Central living area creates a possibility to see 315 degrees views not only to the ocean but in the same time to the jungle above the building. The central living part contains the atrium inside the house which provides the natural illumination of the interior and in the same time the input of the fresh air. Atrium represents the part of the rain forest entering the the interior of the living zone and provides an optical contact to the exterior rain forest above the building. Due to that, the groups of the small monkeys which inhabit the mango trees above the site now can be involved in the active live of the villa.

Building is divided into the tree different levels. The first level is semi-embedded into the ground, on the second floor is located huge mainly living floor with the shared kitchen and an infinity pool on the level of the terrace. The upper floor consist of 3 apartments, each of them has a different exclusive panoramic view. The possibility to cross trough the interior to exterior is on the each floor of the building, even on the upper floor. This fact is enabled by the setting of the building within the steep slope. The apartments do not contain kitchen, the food will be preprepared inside the shared spaces in the living floor. The central part of the living floor consist of the "dirty" kitchen and the island counter top in the inner space of the living room with the dinning table. Moreover, the building include one exterior kitchen for the grill party's in the south part of the building. Besides the kitchen, the exterior space offering the space for the exterior dinning table and a spacious infinity pool.

The essence of the architectural expression of the building is its shape, which is subordinate to its exclusive panorama. Equally, the ocean's panorama can be seen from shared terraces and swimming pool, hot tub, living spaces, the apartment on the first floor, and three apartments on the top floor. The shape of an arch in the ground plan of the building comes from the shape of the elevated terrain. The arch overlaps protect the exterior terraces from the strong tropical sun and the large glazed walls of the facades protects from the torrential rain, typical during the rainy season. The building's structure is divided into a reinforced concrete half-embedded floor, following a concrete access road and a light two-level superstructure dominated by subtle white-skeleton structures and large-size glazed walls.
The infinity pool will be grounded in the reinforced concrete basement, being constructed as an infinity stainless pool with water level disappearing on the ocean background.
Interesting is the inner atrium, which will form a visible exterior background to the main staircase and will be clearly visible from all interior spaces. Its materiality will be a combination of raw visible concrete with the growth of climbing forest plants and palm trees.

Authors: Braňo Hovorka, Martin Paulíny
Colaborators: Natália Michalová
Location: Dominical, Costa Rica
Design: 2016-2017