Floating House 住宅建築 by Oliver Schutte is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2026 A' Design Award 銀獎 in 可持續產品設計 Competition Category.

銀可持續產品· 2026

Floating House 住宅建築

by Oliver Schutte

A' Design Award 銀獎 Winner in 可持續產品 Category

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The Design

About Floating House 住宅建築

浮動之家係一座位於哥斯達黎加中央谷地嘅三層住宅。建築面積約400平方米，坐落喺一個斜坡山腰地段上。項目以被動式設計策略為主導，包括因地制宜嘅選址定位同善用自然資源。工業化同預製建築技術結合本地採集嘅可再生材料。大型屋簷懸挑保護下方空間免受雨水同太陽輻射侵擾。屋頂設有太陽能收集裝置。梯級式花園同露台面向周圍嘅自然景觀。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 銀獎

Floating House 住宅建築是 A' Design Award 銀獎得主，這是授予頂級、華美而令人印象深刻的設計的極為崇高的認可。銀獎得主是極其卓越、極具創造力的作品，展現出其設計師傑出的專業技能、才華與敏銳。預計Floating House 住宅建築將成為一件出色的典範之作，兼具非凡的專業性與深刻的創新性。這件贏得 A' Design Award 銀獎的設計是一項備受矚目、令人欽佩的發明，造福並拓展藝術、科學、設計和技術的界限。Floating House 住宅建築是一件令人羨慕的創作，它喚起渴望，帶來積極的情感，並激發驚嘆與讚嘆。

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