Casa Chavarria Santa Fe home, Puntarenas Province villa interior, modern Costa Rica property photos

Casa Chavarria in Santa Fe, Costa Rica

24 + 23 March 2026

Architecture: Carazo Arquitectura

Location: Santa Fe, Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica

Photos by Cesar Belio

Casa Chavarria, Costa Rica

Entering To Be Outside
Entering this house is stepping outdoors. The architecture inverts the usual order of domestic space: nature is not conceived as a framed view, but as a presence to be inhabited.

The project proposes a way of living in which the user experiences the condition of being outside even from within, establishing a direct and constant relationship with the natural environment. This approach responds to Carazo Arquitectura’s biophilic design methodology, which integrates climate, landscape, and sensory experience as structural components of the project.

At the heart of the house is an interior garden that is not ornamental, but structural. This void regulates cross ventilation, filters natural light, and creates gradients of privacy. The courtyard organizes the architectural plan and gives rhythm to everyday life, functioning simultaneously as threshold and destination. Nature does not accompany the space; it orders it.

The indoor–outdoor integration is developed through passive strategies inherent to tropical architecture. Generous overhangs protect from solar radiation and rain; operable glazing encourages constant air circulation; and a porous envelope allows breeze, light, and vegetation to move through the architecture.

The main element is a handcrafted ventilated terracotta brick façade, which establishes a permeable boundary between public and private, filtering light and reinforcing environmental comfort without relying on mechanical systems.

The house reveals itself through a sequence of gradual boundaries — from open to contained, from shared to intimate — where concrete, teak wood, and modular systems express an honest materiality consistent with the context.

At Casa Chavarría, biophilia is not an aesthetic device but an integral strategy. “Entering to be outside” means inhabiting breathing walls, where nature organizes, ventilates, and softens the living space. The project demonstrates that simple, honest architecture can be deeply innovative when grounded in an understanding of climate, territory, and human experience.