Location: Playa Avellanas, Guanacaste, Costa Rica

Year: 2018
Area: 620 m2

The NMF Residence is a contemporary house that evokes and celebrates traditional architecture such as the Hacienda house in Guanacaste, one of the typical manifestations of architecture in the northwest region of Costa Rica.

Guanacaste’s vernacular architecture is a faithful reflection of knowledge and adaptation to the adverse climatic conditions of the Pacific plains of Guanacaste, a warm and dry climate under the scorching sun. This tradition is now reinterpreted to create a modern design, of geometric figures that allow the separation of environments and open internal spaces to the outdoors.

The NMF Residence is conceived and configured as a large central open space at double height, with movable glass floor-to-ceiling panels, evoking that opening that dilutes the boundaries between the interior and exterior spaces. On the sides, there are two volumes of concrete that contain this vacuum one at each end of the house; where the services are located on one side and the bedrooms on the other, all articulated in harmony by a large floating roof.

This double-height vacuum, in conjunction with the folding glass paneling, allows the space to be ventilated naturally when open. Better yet, it provides an environment that incorporates the exterior landscape into the interior of the project, fusing in a balance the external dry landscape with the comfortable and shaded area of the interior, where the breeze flows on hot days. Having incorporated the refreshing pool intentionally in front of this vacuum, these winds are cooled by it before flowing into the home. A large roof built with local material, which appears to be floating, confines this powerful space and provides shade, a thermal mattress and therefore comfort.

The result is a visually pleasing house, a radical experience of integration between interior and exterior, comfortable, where the interior is protected from the warm and sunny climate of the exterior via passive strategies, separating the most intimate spaces from the common and work areas, and allowing a harmonious balance with the environment surrounding this impressive work.