ACHIOTÉ

Two Villas Above the Pacific

There are hotels that use nature as a backdrop. ACHIOTÉ goes considerably further. High on a steep tropical hillside near Uvita, overlooking Playa Hermosa and the Pacific Ocean, two remarkably slender villas emerge from the vegetation. They sit only twelve metres apart. Yet arriving here feels like entering a private architectural world. Designed by Prague-based Formafatal, led by architect Dagmar Štěpánová, the project consists of two compact 90-square-metre structures that project from the slope and appear almost to float among the trees. The geometry is sharp. The landscape is anything but. That contrast is precisely the point.

Architecture Reduced to the Essential

Formafatal’s approach was deliberately minimalist. Nothing unnecessary. But nothing missing. Thin roof planes and crisp structural lines cut through the dense tropical vegetation, while large expanses of frameless glazing almost disappear when viewed from inside. The most powerful material, however, comes directly from beneath the villas. Their rammed-earth walls were made using clay soil excavated on site. Rather than importing a tropical aesthetic, the architecture is literally constructed from the place it occupies. Concrete floors, built-in elements, steel and glass complete an intentionally limited palette. Against all that precision are palms, branches, humidity, changing skies and an ocean that never stays the same colour for long.

Same Architecture, Different Energy

The two villas have essentially the same floor plan, orientation and material language. Their interiors do not. Formafatal developed each around the atmosphere the architect perceived at its particular position on the site. Jaspis Villa is the lighter of the pair. Named after jasper, its sandy shades reflect what Štěpánová describes as its yin energy and connection with the ocean and sky. Nefrit Villa, named after jade, is darker and more grounded. Here, yang energy is expressed through deeper tones and a red-terra-cotta concrete floor that echoes the colour of the local earth. Only twelve metres separate them. Emotionally, they feel much further apart.

Glass Between You and the Jungle

Each villa is essentially a private lookout. Floor-to-ceiling glazing runs across the Pacific-facing elevation, while the projecting structure places the living spaces seemingly within the tree canopy rather than behind it. The distinction between architecture and landscape becomes deliberately ambiguous. You wake to jungle. Move through rooms made from earth. Step outside towards water. And look straight across the treetops to the Pacific. There is no grand lobby, restaurant or procession of hotel corridors to mediate the experience. ACHIOTÉ is about direct contact.

Your Own Edge of the World

The private terraces extend the architecture towards the horizon, culminating in infinity pools that visually merge with the ocean beyond. This is where the project’s radical simplicity makes sense. With so few visual interruptions, small changes become events. Clouds roll across the Pacific. Light shifts over the rammed-earth walls. Tropical vegetation throws moving shadows across concrete. Birds cross the enormous glass sightlines. Then the jungle darkens and the entire atmosphere changes again. You don’t need much of an itinerary. The architecture has already given you one.

Biophilic Without the Greenwash

Formafatal describes the villas as sustainable houses with biophilic interiors. Here that means more than placing tropical plants beside designer furniture. The buildings respond to the slope. Earth excavated during construction was reused in their walls. The compact footprints reduce their physical presence. Materials and colours were selected to relate directly to the surrounding soil and vegetation. Even the villas’ contrasting interiors derive from how each individual site relates to ocean, sky, ground and jungle. Sustainability becomes part of the architecture rather than another layer added afterwards.

Costa Rica, Seen Differently

ACHIOTÉ sits in one of the most dramatically biodiverse stretches of Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. Playa Hermosa and the surf culture around Dominical are nearby, while Uvita provides the gateway to the broader Costa Ballena region. But this isn’t really a place demanding constant exploration. The temptation is precisely the opposite. Stay. Swim. Watch. Listen. The entire project has been designed around the increasingly rare pleasure of doing very little in an extraordinary place.

Earth + Glass + Horizon

ACHIOTÉ doesn’t need the conventional vocabulary of a boutique hotel. There are just two villas. No decorative storytelling. No manufactured tropical fantasy. Instead, Formafatal uses architecture to intensify what was already here. Earth becomes wall. Jungle becomes enclosure. Glass becomes almost nothing. And the Pacific becomes the room’s most important feature. This is Costa Rica stripped back to four elements: earth, vegetation, water and an almost impossible horizon.