This new home of some 300 square meters was designed in the Puntarenas Canton area of Costa Rica by the architectural firm Benjamin Garcia Saxe Architecture in 2013. The Gooden-Nahome family wanted to create their home on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and found an incredible site overlooking the sea. The biggest obstacle they found was that the site was predominantly on a very steep slope, and the view of the ocean is captured only in the upper-middle part of the ground. However, they did not see this as a negative aspect but rather saw the opportunity to explore together an architecture that was appropriate for these conditions.
Together they explored the possibilities of creating large retaining walls in order to relocate the house on the land, which is a technique commonly used by most houses in the area.
In the end, they decided to do exactly the opposite, and in fact allow the slope, land, vegetation, water and animals to flow underneath the house. The house was elevated, and by doing so, made it possible to save on the immense cost of creating retaining walls. This almost common sense decision created a very light intervention that allows the terrain to breathe while providing a spectacular ocean view from the key location on the site.
