Project Name: Casa Komorebi

Location: Bahia Ballena, Costa Rica

Architecture Practice: Studio Saxe

Total Floor Area: 470 m²

Completion: 2025

Photography: Depth Lens — Alvaro Fonseca

Design Features: Perched high above the Pacific coastline of Bahia Ballena, Casa Komorebi is one of the most compelling residential projects to emerge from Costa Rica in recent years. Designed by Studio Saxe under Lead Architect Benjamin Saxe, the 470-square-metre home redefines what it means to live in harmony with a tropical landscape through a rigorously resolved architectural strategy.

Rather than consolidating the programme into a single monolithic structure, Studio Saxe fragmented the residence into a series of distinct pavilions, each following the natural contours of the mountainous terrain. Circulation between spaces becomes an immersive outdoor ritual, drawing inhabitants through lush gardens and open-air corridors before arriving at any given room. A single expansive umbrella roof floats above the ensemble, unifying the scattered volumes while framing panoramic views of ocean, forest, and sky simultaneously in multiple directions.

The name itself reveals the project's guiding philosophy. Komorebi, a Japanese term describing sunlight as it filters through foliage, captures precisely the sensory atmosphere the architects sought to create: dappled, transient, and deeply tied to the rhythms of the natural world. Rather than orienting the house toward a single ocean view, the design opens in multiple directions so that the surrounding mountain range, lush internal gardens, and distant ocean horizon become equally weighted elements in the spatial composition.

Sustainability is embedded within the tectonic logic of the project. The separation of pavilions encourages natural cross-ventilation throughout the home, while the double-layered thermal roof allows warm air to escape and cool breezes to enter, eliminating the need for mechanical cooling entirely through passive bioclimatic design. Structurally, a robust concrete base anchors the home to its steep slope, while lightweight prefabricated steel modules were transported through the rugged terrain to minimise site disruption. Casa Komorebi stands as a masterclass in site-responsive design, where architecture does not compete with nature but quietly, and beautifully, surrenders to it.

Design Team: Founded in San Jose, Costa Rica in 2004 by Benjamin Garcia Saxe, Studio Saxe has established itself as one of Latin America's most internationally recognised architecture practices. Over more than two decades, the studio has evolved from a singular vision into a multidisciplinary atelier whose award-winning portfolio spans residential, hospitality, and wellness typologies across multiple continents. The practice is distinguished by its ability to synthesise technological precision with artisanal craftsmanship, producing built environments that are simultaneously ecologically responsive and spatially compelling.

The studio is currently led by Founder and Design Director Benjamin G. Saxe alongside Co-founder and Managing Director Erika Escalante, whose combined leadership drives both creative direction and strategic development. The practice operates at the intersection of bioclimatic design, material innovation, and contextual sensitivity. Each project is approached as a site-specific investigation, wherein local topography, prevailing climate, and regional cultural identity collectively inform the formal and tectonic resolution of the design.

The senior team comprises Senior Project Architect Arthur Micheron, Head of Interior Design Fernanda Valverde, Senior Designer Gustavo Chinchilla, Construction Coordination Architects Monica Hernandez and Jorge Mojica, and BIM Coordinator Architect Elias Porras, among other specialists ensuring rigorous design standards from concept through to completion. Studio Saxe remains steadfast in its founding principle: that architecture must not impose upon its landscape, but emerge organically from within it, becoming a genuine extension of the natural environment it inhabits.