Gold Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2021
Lulu Villa House
by Dante Luna
- A' Design Award 2021 Gold Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2021
- CLIENT: Dante Luna Arquitectos
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 31,111
- Verification code 38859A7FFA · Verify this award
About Lulu Villa House
Lulu Villa is a private residence located in Las Terrenas. The house covers 850 square meters of construction on a plot of 2,492 square meters. The design is composed of three intersecting volumes, one of which has two levels. The first level holds the social areas, with large galleries open to the exterior, and the guest rooms. The second level holds the bedrooms and a family room, linked by an open corridor. Concrete in its natural state marks the facades. The entrance uses aluminum profiles with a wood finish, resistant to sea salt and spaced to let daylight enter.
Dante Luna's Lulu Villa House exemplifies the refined trajectory of contemporary tropical architecture that synthesizes modernist formal clarity with profound sensitivity to regional materials, climatic responsiveness, and the phenomenological experience of inhabiting space within coastal landscapes. The work demonstrates exceptional compositional intelligence through its orchestration of interlocking rectilinear volumes that create a dynamic interplay between solid and void, opacity and transparency, massive permanence and delicate permeability. The central timber screen emerges as a particularly accomplished element, its carefully calibrated rhythm of vertical members creating a contemporary interpretation of traditional Caribbean and Latin American brise-soleil traditions while establishing the primary threshold between public approach and private interior realms. The material palette reveals sophisticated understanding of regional building traditions, the rough limestone cladding evoking geological formations and vernacular construction practices while the board-formed concrete introduces a refined modernist counterpoint, its horizontal grain patterns creating subtle textural dialogue with the vertical timber rhythms. One observes how the architectural composition appears designed to engage the specific qualities of tropical twilight, the warm interior illumination transforming the timber screen into a lantern-like element that suggests welcome and sanctuary against the cooling evening atmosphere. The permeable grass-paver forecourt demonstrates ecological sensitivity while establishing a mediating zone between landscape and architecture, softening the boundary between natural and constructed realms. The careful placement of mature palm specimens creates vertical counterpoints that soften the geometric rigor while reinforcing the tropical setting. This work invites contemplation of how contemporary architecture might honor place, climate, and craft traditions while achieving formal clarity and material sophistication that transcend regional specificity to address universal questions of dwelling, threshold, and the poetics of shelter.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The open spaces of the house are composed of three proposed exterior volumes. The way in which materiality, in its noblest state converges with the interior, highlights the unique characteristics of the project. Especially the permeability of the entrance, combining exposed wood and concrete provides the entrance of the sun's rays generating light effects and shadows allowing a cozy and interesting space.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Villa Lulu is a private residence of 850 square meters of construction in a lot of 2,492 square meters, located in Loma Esperanza, Las Terrenas.
- Tags
- House, spaces, material, wood, concrete, volumetric.
- Production Technology
- The architectural design of Lulu Ville consists of a combination of different textures, elements, and volumes. This manages to be balanced and with a good handling of the materiality, is distinctive in its facades the concrete in its natural state, which is present in its prolonged walls and slabs; the front part is a perforated wood finish that allows access to natural light inside, walls with rustic textures and a white volume that protrudes from the rest of the structure.
- Design Challenge
- The biggest challenge for the creation of this house was to relate the materiality and give a beach effect. Especially in the permeability of the entrance combining wood and exposed concrete. To achieve this profitably, look for a material that is resistant to sea salt to last its resistance. That is why we used aluminum profiles painted in wood and interrupted their arrangement to allow light to enter the input module.
- Project Duration
- The project started in May 2016 in Las Terrenas and finished in July 2017.
- Operation Flow
- The house is composed of three blocks intersected, one of them is two levels. The first level houses the social areas, characterized by a great integration to the exterior with large galleries, and the service and sleeping areas of guests. On the second level, there are the bedrooms and the family room that are connected by an open corridor as a balcony, as in the traditional Antillean architecture.
- Research
- The endeavor placed in this project reflects the belief of our studio that, as architects, designing a house is something sacred, the customer is giving his or her confidence and life for an indefinite time, sometimes years of life in a mortgage. The biggest investment in life, so it requires an honest and coherent response, which is why we focus on proposing what the client is really doing, it's part of professional ethics, the only option is to do it well.
- Inspiration
- The residence was designed under the conceptual basis of the intersection of the three main volumes, one of them is two levels: entrance module, rooms and living areas. The architectural design of Villa Lulu consists of a combination of different textures, elements, and volumes.
- Image Credits
- Fernando Calzada Photography
- Patents
- Copyrights belong to Dante Luna Arquitectos
Colors of Lulu Villa House
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