Starfish villas | oustudio

Starfish is a residential touristic complex realized in Kenya, not far from Malindi Marine National Park, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 1979. It includes sixteen articulated villas around two swimming pools with a difference in height of two meters. The rocky land, rather than hinder, turned out to be an opportunity to create a dynamic and articulated profile of the complex itself. The distribution of the villas has been organized around an “island” placed in the middle of the two swimming pools; one of the villas is located on that island and it has access both on the stretch of lower water and on the highest.

The aim of the intervention is to establish a dialogue between the Moorish language belonging to the near Lamu archipelago and a more contemporary vision of the project. For that reason each home shows a coexistence between the perforated outer walls, typical of Lamu, and a clear, candid, modular system. The villas seem to wear a “lace” which alludes to the local construction practices, allows good aeration, guarantees intimacy, mediates the relationship between interior and exterior, fences from the sun’s rays. A play of shadows and lights reminding to oriental atmospheres.

Water and vegetation, then, are the natural materials that help define the best tropical expression; the first refers to the idea of coolness, the second offers privacy solutions.