PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

The International Property Awards in its 2020 Americas Property Awards named Villa Serena a double award winner. The home received the "5-Star Best Residential Property Costa Rica 2020-2021" and "Award Winner Architecture Single

Residence Costa Rica 2020-2021". The project also received the nomination to the Grand Finals, where it will compete for "Best Residential Property Americas."

Villa Serena is located on the northern bay inside the Peninsula Papagayo Luxury Resort in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. The site has a soft slope towards the access road, reaching a small plateau and then sharply sloping down towards the bay. The downslope area also has a curving shape, almost in the form of a small ridge right on the home's location.

The clients desired a spacious residence, generous in areas, and that should create a multitude of sensations, views, and spaces to be enjoyed at different times. The home responds to this brief with a spatial arrangement based on modules that articulate around a softly curving façade wall based on the terrain's natural shape. These modules are interconnected via covered, open-air breezeways, which generate view corridors and enhance the natural breeze. The circulation spaces between the guest bedrooms, the main foyer, and the master bedroom are all open-air to further improve the home's casual feel and its connection with nature.

The home welcomes you with a spacious main foyer via a massive front door suspended from vertical columns and without the typical header. This design is intentional to allow the constant flow of natural breeze through the foyer, from which you first experience the majestic views of the ocean upon entering the home.

The home features an inverted design that responds to the sharp downslope towards the ocean. The primary access is on the upper level, where we have the Main Suite and two additional guest bedrooms. On the lower level, we have the main social area, a spacious open room with the main living, dining, and kitchen areas. Next to it is a large open-air covered outdoor dining area with outdoor cooking, defined by a custom curving wood screen and cantilevering wood table, all in solid Cenizaro wood.

From this area, we have a spatial connection to the outdoor spaces around the swimming pool, punctuated by the cantilevering bridge that hovers around 20 feet above the ground at its tip. At this point, you experience a sense of connection with the natural environment, close to the treetops where you often see the capuchin monkeys swinging around the branches. Often, entire families of monkeys, even mothers carrying their young on their backs, are seen from these outdoor spaces.

Our designs are always seeking strategies to provide a variety of spaces and richness of experiences. Our philosophy combines this with an environmentally friendly approach by reducing the number of rooms that require air conditioning. All of the home's main hallways, staircases, and any circulation area are all open-air rooms. This approach allows us to have a 28% reduction in the total air conditioning load compared to the typical scheme where all these spaces are "interior, air-conditioned" rooms. We allow ourselves the freedom to make use of these outdoor spaces for much more. This is exemplified by the main entrance foyer, from which we create a sense of surprise, say a "wow-factor" when entering the home.

Our approach complements with technical elements for a final result, a residence with a high energy efficiency level for its size. The variable-flow A/C system continually adapts to the home's needs; when zones turn on or off, the main condenser system ramps up our down accordingly. The exterior door and window system feature impressively high levels of thermal insulation. All of the exterior doors and windows are double-glazed and with Low-E solar protection coating. The western-facing curtain wall is particularly exposed; therefore, we specified this in triple-glazing plus the Low-E layer. The curtain wall possesses a particular detail of a frameless glass corner, something extremely hard to accomplish, which typically window vendors say cannot be done. This is one example of our attention to detail, where the right product allows visual enjoyment from the inside while providing the needed technical performance at the same time.

In general terms, we designed the home to provide the owners and its occupants a sense of comfort, absolute connection with the environment, blurring of indoor and outdoor lines, a high degree of technical performance, equipment, and the highest fit finish.