Guanacaste, Costa Rica – Ben Gracia Saxe
Built: 2010
Bamboo is an extraordinarily versatile material. It’s strong, flexible, lightweight, totally renewable and, potentially very long lasting even when in ground. The home shown here uses bamboo in both conventional and very unconventional ways. It’s a home ideally suited to it’s hot, humid locale – open and airy – yet the bamboo is used to offer a degree of security against intruders that standard window glass could never achieve.
Here are the architect’s notes:
“This house for my mom Helen is the culmination of a lifelong dream to construct a place where my mom, my brother, and I can be together. My mom first moved away from the city and built her own home out of tree trunks, mosquito nets and tin. She then placed her bed in a corner of this house to watch the moon as she went to bed, and told me that she remembers both my brother and I every night as she watches the moon. The new home then became reinterpretation of her old self made dwelling by providing her with a view to the moon and a very open plan that captures an internal garden whilst giving her security when she sleeps.”
This house was the winner of the “Best House in the World” Category at the World Architecture Festival 2010. Constructed of over 4,000 pieces of bamboo, this house is largely open to the air with two simple tin roofs oversailing the main living spaces and adjoined by a central courtyard space. An intelligent natural ventilation strategy ensures the inside of the house remains cool in the tropical climate.
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