Open-air bedrooms and terraces are raised above the treetops at this holiday home designed by Italian architecture studio PAT on Kenya's Manda Island.
PAT teamed up with fellow Italian architect Ferdinando Fagnola on the project, which involved renovating a 2oth-century "white house" and adding a series of elevated, pavilion-like structures.
PAT renovated an existing house and added new open-air bedrooms
The resulting Falcon House is self-sufficient, providing its own electricity and water, and incorporating passive cooling to remove the need for air conditioning.
The white house, built in the Swahili style of nearby city Lamu, was the starting point for the design.
The new rooms were raised up from the ground
The house reminded the client of a trio of modernist villas in Sardinia, which he had admired since childhood stays at his family's vacation home on the Mediterranean island. When he bought the site on Manda Island, he decided to track down the architects behind these 1970s villas. That led him to Fagnola, who at the time was working with PAT co-founder Andrea Veglia on the renovation.
Adjustable louvres allow cross-ventilation
Despite their shared love of modernist architecture, both Veglia and Fagnola felt that a different approach was required here.
"Our experience of sleeping in the old white house was that it became unbearably hot at night, as its mass released the heat accumulated during the day," explained Veglia. "We had to resort to ...