This residential project consists of a 6,000 sqft home for an entrepreneur, his wife, and their 3 children. The site, a flat 2,000 square meter lot, is located in a suburban development within the metropolitan area in the Puerto Rican municipality of Carolina. It enjoys the unique characteristics of the Torrecilla Lagoon, its privileged view, and the distinctive water canals that serve as an alternate way of access to the house. The dining room as a unifying space for the hole program, a place in which the contemporary family manages to meet and gather at the end of each day. All activities that take place on this place form part of a family ritual. This aspect, accompanied by the duality between the lagoon and the canals, gave way for the house's proposed footprint, massing, and formal composition of the project.
Read More
The proposed architectural design intends to highlight the unique context of the natural lagoon and the modern program of the house through the use of planes and volumes, and explores the multiple relationships between them and the grand exterior with ample fields of view, illumination, and natural ventilation. The spaces that mark and define the limits of the central courtyard express themselves volumetrically with various opening patterns, which mostly respond to their function, solar orientation, and geometric composition. The foundation system for the residence consists of 70+ concrete piles.
Horizontal planes expressed through the use of overhangs and cantilevered balconies were used throughout the house as design elements to visually and physically attach the different volumes that compose the structure. These also serve as shading elements to protect door and window openings from the hot, year-round sun of Puerto Rico. Most spaces that surround the courtyard are open to it through the use of jalousie doors in an effort to reinforce the exterior-interior relationship. Lagoon House, which has been also published, was successfully completed in the year 2000.
Read Less
