Zac Monro Architects

Bahamas

The private villa is arranged as 2 wings that open to enclose a piece of private garden framing the water’s edge. It is built as a lightweight and semi-permeable structure, closely connected to the landscape with an extremely sustainable approach to services. It uses the site’s natural elements to achieve a high level of comfort. It also marries the more traditional tropical architectural spaces with a bold contemporary move worthy of this spectacular site.

When the surrounding natural landscape is this spectacular, the home deserves free and fluid connection with the outside, so at the core of this construction is its permeability. The slender steel structure frees-up the envelope of the building allowing the façade to be set back, to create depth and shade, It also means that it can be made of lightweight materials: glass, hardwood and white render. A 2nd skin of hardwood louvered screens protects against the sun and allows light to filter comfortably into the rooms at high noon. This has given us the freedom inside to organise the interior as a sequence of public/private spaces, all unified under the shelter of the shapely curved roof.