Studio House: Rammed-Earth Villa Open to Pacific Breeze
Studio House sits in Costa Rica as a private house shaped by slope, jungle, and Pacific light. Designed by Formafatal founder Dagmar Štěpánová for herself and partner Karel Vančura, it pairs porous living with quiet refuge. The two-level villa near Uvita trades a conventional façade for exposure to air and ocean, threading terraces, a pool, and a rooftop into the site’s fall. It lives outdoors as much as in.
Air moves first, then the shimmer of a Pacific horizon draws the eye across leaves. A long terrace slips into view, its edge barely interrupting cicadas and surf.
This is a house tuned to its ground and weather. A two-level residence near Uvita by Formafatal, it leans into slope, trades walls for air, and treats outdoor rooms as the daily route through home.
Carve Into Slope
The terrain falls two ways. Rather than fight it, the plan kinks and steps with the contours, keeping roots intact and folding vegetation into courtyards and edges. Rammed earth walls hold the uphill pressure while large openings relieve it toward jungle-covered hills, making the approach a measured descent of concrete slabs and a levitating entry platform that doubles as a roof over the bathroom.
Remove A Façade
An entire elevation gives way at the main living level. The room becomes a covered terrace, trading glass for the thrum of air, sound, and shifting light across the day. Interior and exterior run in parallel bands, so circulation is an experience of shade and exposure, with the ocean held wide in frames that catch sunrise, sunset, and, at night, the stars.
Thread Outdoor Rooms
More than half the footprint is outside. Terraces flank the interior, a built-in grill grounds one edge at grade, and long COR-TEN stairs draw a confident line to the pool below. The 10-meter infinity pool tracks the topography, its dynamic geometry echoed above on the rooftop terrace—an aerie among treetops for sunsets over the ocean and clear, unblinking night skies.
Hide The Private
Bedrooms tuck into the lower level. From the garden side they read softly, yet from the pool their outlook throws past water to open sea, with the bathroom sharing that view straight from the shower. A sunlit hallway, washed in gold-red at day’s end, links two compact rooms with a utility core, while stepping stones and twin stairs stitch the upper and lower paths together.
Glow After Dark
At night the kitchen wall becomes sky. Laser-cut steel doors cast a starlike pattern, echoing a four-meter concrete island that anchors the open plan above. The motif returns downstairs as bedroom doors glow like a moon (a quiet nod to the real one overhead), tying interior light to the wider canopy and the slow rhythm of the coast.
Wabi-sabi thinking guides the palette. Earthy tones sit against green, with materials chosen to weather and take on the air, while handmade pieces by the architect mix with art and iconic lighting.
By dusk the horizon cools and the pool edge blurs. The house lets the site lead, holding a calm line between jungle and sea, and leaving plenty of room for breeze.
Photography by BoysPlayNice
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