Floating House Arkitektura sa Pinuy-anan by Oliver Schutte

Floating House Arkitektura sa Pinuy-anan by Oliver Schutte is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2026 A' Design Award nga Pilak in Malungtaron nga Produkto, Proyekto ug Berdeng Disenyo Competition Category.

PilakMalungtaron nga Produkto· 2026

Floating House Arkitektura sa Pinuy-anan

by Oliver Schutte

A' Design Award nga Pilak Winner in Malungtaron nga Produkto Category

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Colors

The Design

About Floating House Arkitektura sa Pinuy-anan

Ang Floating House usa ka balay nga may tulo ka andana nga nahimutang sa Central Valley sa Costa Rica. Ang bilding adunay gidak-on nga mga 400 ka kwadrado metros ug gipahimutang sa usa ka bakilid nga bahin sa bungtod. Ang mga estratehiya sa passive design maoy naggiya sa proyekto, lakip na ang pagposisyon nga angay sa lugar ug ang paggamit sa natural nga mga kahinguhaan. Ang industriyal ug prefabricated nga mga teknik sa pagtukod gihiusa uban sa mga materyales nga giani sa lokal ug regenerative. Ang dagkong mga sanipa sa atop nagpanalipod sa mga luna sa ubos gikan sa ulan ug radyasyon sa adlaw. Ang enerhiya sa adlaw ginakolekta diha sa atop. Ang mga hagdan-hagdan nga tanaman ug mga balkonahe nag-atubang sa palibot nga talan-awon.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award nga Pilak

Floating House Arkitektura sa Pinuy-anan usa ka mananaog sa A' Design Award nga Pilak, usa ka talagsaon kaayo nga prestihiyoso nga pag-ila nga gihatag sa labing taas nga lebel, matahom, ug makadani nga mga disenyo. Ang mga mananaog sa Pilak labihan ka hayag ug mamugnaon nga mga buhat nga nagpakita sa bantogan nga kahanas, talento, ug kamatngon sa ilang mga tigdesinyo. Gilauman nga ang Floating House Arkitektura sa Pinuy-anan mahimong talagsaon nga buhat nga ipasigarbo, dako ang pagkapropesyonal ug lawom ang kabag-ohan. Kini nga disenyo nga nakadaog og A' Design Award nga Pilak usa ka labihan ka mamatikdan, gihangaan nga imbento nga mapuslanon ug nagpalapad sa mga utlanan sa arte, siyensya, disenyo, ug teknolohiya. Floating House Arkitektura sa Pinuy-anan usa ka paglalang nga giinggit sa daghan, nga nagpukaw og mga tinguha, nagdala og positibo nga mga pagbati, ug nagsiga sa katingala ug paghangyo.

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: The Floating House is located in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, which houses the Greater Metropolitan Area with about sixty percent of the national population. In this context, the project creates a suburban oasis on a beautiful hillside location. Hanging gardens and balconies provide the home owners with spectacular views of the surrounding landscape, while large roof overhangs protect the individual spaces from rainwater and solar radiation. Solar energy is harvested on top of the roof.
Dimensions & Packaging: The three-level building measures about 400 square meters in total. Floating light-frame structures are contrasted by service areas that are built onto the sloping terrain. Social spaces in the center of the house are opening up to the surrounding gardens of the property. The project is based on passive design strategies such as site-specific positioning and the use of natural resources. Industrial building techniques are combined with locally harvested and regenerative construction materials.
Tags: Architecture, Bioclimatic, Climate, Cocreation, Design, Development, Modularity, Prefabrication, Sustainability, Regeneration, Residential, Tropical, Zero emission, Zero footprint
Production Technology: The Floating House combines prefabricated and local building techniques. Its ground floor transitions from a sloped site condition to the terraced building geometry. Private rooms at the top float above a sandwiched garden level, resulting in three different conditions that are vertically stacked on top of each other. Large glass doors and sliding walls are designed to dynamically moderate the relationship among interior and exterior spaces, according to the necessities of rainy or dry season.
Design Challenge: The main challenge of the No Footprint House series, including the Floating House as an expression of its ongoing material development progress, is to unite a broad variety of entities in a joined multistakeholder approach. Such broadness and systemic thinking are required to find solutions for some of the greatest challenges of our time, which includes the lowering and leveling of emissions in all sectors that significantly contribute environmental contamination.
Research: Costa Rica has shifted from a strategy of sustainability to regenerative development. In this context, the ongoing No Footprint House series, the NFH project, drives innovation through the development and incorporation of renewable and locally sourced building materials in combination with passive design strategies and local energy production. The project is optimized through industrial and prefabricated building techniques, the first of its kind in Central America.
Inspiration: The Floating House is inspired by its surrounding landscape and the local tropical climate. A series of interrelated volumes and outside spaces are placed according to the logic of the target site. Ample roof overhangs follow the sloped site condition, protecting all spaces below while revealing spectacular views onto the Costa Rican capital San Jose. Interior rooms merge with their surrounding exterior gardens, creating a balanced and harmonic relationship of nature and the built environment.
Project Duration: The actual duration of each project from the NFH series depends on the specific building size and its respective location. Beyond the building of individual homes, the NFH framework engages in strategies of sustainability and regenerative development. This includes, for example, topics like reforestation, the creation of food forests, permaculture, local energy production and a continuous life cycle improvement. The duration of these aspects can be described as ongoing and potentially endless.
Operation Flow: The Floating House is designed according to the principles of bioclimatic architecture and passive design strategies. Industrial building techniques combine with locally harvested and regenerative construction materials. The project is based on the research of the No Footprint House, a modular building system that allows for a broad variety of residential typologies. The larger project framework engages with academia and industry to cocreate sustainable and regenerative building solutions.
Patents: Copyrights to all building and interior designs belong to A-01 (A Company / A Foundation)
Image Credits: A-01 / Garcia Lachner