Built away from the city in a beautiful tropical region of Colombia, this family home is specially designed to entertain the passions of its owners. Enlisting the design work of Giovanni Moreno Arquitectos, the couple and their young daughter ended up inhabiting a stunning hillside dwelling filled with natural light and extensive social spaces. At the same time, however, the privacy of each occupant was taken into serious consideration, and the house appears much more formal and removed at its street-facing rear than at the hill’s edge. The dwelling is composed of three distinct rectangular portions of different sizes, each set on its own level, and each with a unique purpose. The top floor contains the home’s bedrooms and other private spaces, while the middle is filled with living space for occupants and visitors alike. Before both, and set in front of the rest of the building, an impressive art gallery houses most of the residents’ expansive collection of paintings and sculptures.
Though every floor of the residence has a singular purpose, size, and orientation, the house as a whole exhibits a uniform decor theme. Walls are nearly universally kept white, allowing for each room and passageway to be defined by decor alone. Above, ornamental chandeliers provide an elegant addition to more function recessed lighting, while traditional Latin American rugs frame eating and living spaces underfoot. The bamboo shutters lining the main edge of the house can be moved aside whenever desired, opening up every major room to the views and open air of the property beyond.
The main volume of the home is at the top of the property’s slope, with private bedrooms and bathrooms set above a lower level featuring indoor-outdoor public spaces.
Down below the pool and partially sunken into the hillside, a large additional story contains exhibition space for art, additional living areas, and storage.
The layered projection of the home’s various levels at the rear lead to a series of different exterior recreation spaces on two different levels, with the option of a third since the bedrooms up top can be transformed into contained open-air decks.
From the side, the home almost appears small, since the bottom level is invisible and the only interior sections truly obvious are the rear of the middle floor and the private top module.
At the building’s street-facing edge, it appears imposing, rectangular, and almost even commercial in nature. With only thin slatted windows along this side, the privacy of those living within is carefully preserved.
In the evening, the warm glow of the house emanates from within even when its shutter doors are closed, making it seem welcoming without revealing any of the interior.
With the shutters open, the rear of the house turns into a vibrant lawn for hosting large gatherings or simply socializing as a family.
In the evening, the light of the setting sun reflects off the home’s windows and pool, with the addition of filtered light from inside. As opposed to the closed-off facade from the street side, this view reveals much of what’s happening inside when the bamboo shutters are open.
Next to the pool, which is filled to nearly the top of its walls in current fashion, is a wooden patio deck willed with minimal lounge furniture. To one side, a view of the hills around the property is available.
On the bottom level, jutting out from below the main residence, a serene patio gives access to the yard, with its wide bamboo doors opening to reveal a portion of the homeowners’ art collection lining the walls.
The bottom-level patio slopes upward along the pool’s edge to meet up with a covered deck on the middle floor, home to the building’s main public rooms.
Behind the columns of the covered patio, the dwelling’s main public rooms look out over the lawn and the pool deck. The living space here features furnishings with a blend of traditional roots, contemporary comfort, and outdoor influence.
The home’s dining table is more formal than one might expect from an indoor-outdoor area, but is still resistant to the elements. The solidity of this patio furniture helps make the outdoor living spaces feel more like permanent rooms than recreation areas.
In various important rooms of the house, ornate chandelier-style light fixtures frame the largest furniture pieces, adding a touch of tradition and high fashion to the modern rectangular lines of each space.
Between the dining and living areas, a low table is centered between the edges of the largest painting in the room, with sculptural pieces scattered around and on top of it.
A thin, modern kitchen provides ample cooking space (though not much wiggle room), the only place in the home featuring two unique smooth light grey and black finishes four cabinets and countertops.
Up a set of concrete steps and into the most private portion of the residence, the walls are kept intentionally white and unadorned to allow rows of artwork to dominate the decor. Even the flooring and balcony have a smooth white finish, with comfortably bright lights dotting the ceiling overhead.
Perhaps the only major room devoid of paintings, the homeowners’ daughter’s bedroom is still engaging nonetheless, decorated specifically with a young girl in mind. However, all the space’s permanent fixtures are in line with the decor of the residence as a whole, allowing the room to grow more mature with the child and possibly even become a guest room one day.
In a number of the house’s rooms, a unique transformable combination of window, wall, and balcony has been devised, composed of mobile bamboo panels and permanent glass railings. As the panels are pushed aside on their hinges, the bedroom turns into a large open-air deck.
The child’s room has its own expansive walk-in closet, filled with all the clothes a little girl could desire and giving room to expand once she grows older. The shelves and racks of clothing don’t quite hit the ceiling, keeping most items in reach.
The interior walls of the master suite don’t quite reach the ceiling, connecting each space within in a minimal manner without compromising the integrity of the separate areas.
The master bedroom features a window and balcony hybrid similar to the one found in the child’s room, but it is expanded here to better fit the larger scope of the space. To deal with folding away the bamboo shutters elegantly in such a large gap, the balcony has been split down the middle by a small piece of wall on which hinges are mounted.
Like most of the house’s spaces, the master bathroom is dominated by white walls and grey installations, relying on accent pieces to add color. Here, however, those accents come in the form of typical bathroom accessories instead of artwork on the walls.
Giovanni Moreno Arquitectos
