Set among lush green hills near the town of Uvita, in southern Costa Rica, this retreat designed by Dagmar Štěpánová is sincere and deeply rooted in its landscape. It rests respectfully among mature trees, as if it had always belonged to this place. Its volume seems simple, yet it is full of spatial nuances: open and protective at once, intimate yet exposed to the immensity of the Pacific.
Architecture in dialogue
The plot, sloping in two directions, was the project’s first interlocutor. The house chose to follow its complexity, to adapt to its curves and roots, to let the vegetation guide it. From this complicity between form and terrain emerges a dialoguing architecture.
In the main space, an entire façade disappears: there are no boundaries between inside and out. The light, sound and air of the jungle flow into the home, dissolving the frontier between what is built and what is natural. Every room becomes a lookout toward the sun or the stars, a living scene that changes with the passing hours.
Studio House: open yet hidden
Designed by Dagmar for herself and her partner and friend Karel Vančura, Studio House is both a permanent home and a seasonal retreat. It stands on the same plot as the Achioté villas, also designed by Formafatal, sharing with them the ocean horizon and the lushness of the tropical forest.
From the access road, the house appears as a minimalist volume of rammed earth, pierced by large glazed openings that allow the jungle to penetrate visually inside. More than half of its surface is dedicated to terraces and a swimming pool—spaces where everyday life merges with the outdoors.
A suspended platform leads to the main entrance, which also serves as a roof for the lower bathroom. The sequence of spaces—living room, kitchen, terrace, and grill area—flows as a ritual path toward the landscape. From the terrace, a corten steel staircase descends to the ten-metre-long infinity pool, which seems to dissolve into the Pacific horizon. Another staircase ascends to the upper terrace, where the sky opens over the tree canopy—a place to watch the sunset or the stars.
The lower level, partially concealed, houses the bedrooms and bathroom, visible only from the private garden. A series of interior and exterior staircases—together with a path of floating slabs—connect the different levels in a silent choreography.
Between earth and stars
The upper space is organised as a single environment, dominated by a four-metre-long concrete island that acts as the heart of the home. At night, a wall of cabinets with perforated steel doors lights up like an artificial firmament, projecting a starry sky across the concrete surfaces. On the lower floor, the bedroom doors extend this luminous play: they shine like moons, reflecting both the real and the imagined stars born from the interior light.
The materials—earth, concrete, steel, glass, and solid cedar wood—express a warm sobriety, a wabi-sabi aesthetic that celebrates imperfection and the passage of time. The earthen colour of the walls resonates with the surrounding vegetation; metal oxidises slowly; concrete preserves the imprint of its formwork. Everything changes and ages with dignity.
Inside, paintings by Josef Achrer Jr., works by artist Lukáš Musil, and abstract textiles by Geometr Studio add an intimate artistic dimension. The furniture combines pieces designed by the architect herself with contemporary classics—by Ligne Roset, Vitra, Moooi and Artemide—forming a coherent and serene visual language.
Studio House becomes an experience: a continuous conversation between matter and atmosphere, between the human body and the vastness of nature. Here, Dagmar Štěpánová manages to condense her design philosophy—the pursuit of balance between brutalism and subtlety, between geometric precision and emotion—into a work that seems to have been born from the jungle itself.
In this house that floats between sky and earth, architecture becomes life shared with the landscape.
Project: Studio House.
Location: Playa Hermosa, OSA
Uvita – Bahia Ballena, Puntarenas.
Completed: 2025.
Built area: house 100 m², terraces 96 m², pool 21 m².
Plot: 11.000 m2.
Author: Dagmar Štěpánová. Studio: Formafatal.
Photography: BoysPlayNice.
Construction: Willy Jeferson Céspedes Vargas + ocal workers.
Flooring: Different Design [Pavel Trousil].
Metalwork: Meprezuh [Ariel Zúñiga].
Cabinetmaking: Aharel Godínez taller.
Artwork: Josef Achrer Jr. Lukáš Musil. Studio Geometr.
Source: Linka News.
Dagmar Štěpánová
Dagmar Štěpánová is a Czech architect whose sensitivity to nature, culture, and design has made her a creative beacon between Europe and Central America. She studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague. After spending more than a decade collaborating with various architectural firms, she set out on her own path to embrace a more personal, organic, and holistic vision of space.
In 2015, she founded Formafatal, a studio conceived from the outset not merely as an architecture and interior design office but as a creative laboratory where design, scenography, furniture, and spatial experience converge. Dagmar leads with conviction an interdisciplinary team, aware that each project demands a unique, intimate, and empathetic approach.
Guided by her passion for Latin American cultures and architecture, Dagmar has woven a symbolic bridge between her European roots and her attraction to the tropics. This affinity led her, in 2020, to move to Costa Rica, where she now directs the local branch of Formafatal together with Belgian architect Jeroen Bollen. Meanwhile, the Prague studio continues to thrive under the leadership of architect Katarína Varsová and designer Jan Roučka.
Dagmar often reminds us that to build is to engage in dialogue. She delights in every stage of the process—from the conceptual framework to the smallest details—personally selecting collaborators who share her attitude toward space. The studio, for her, is like a professional family.
Formatatal
From its bases in Prague and Costa Rica, Formafatal conceives each project as a total experience, where material, atmosphere, and gesture merge into a single language. Their work stands out for its contextual and sensitive approach, embracing the landscape, culture, and people for whom it is designed. There is no boundary between exterior and interior, between idea and detail: everything belongs to a coherent and profoundly human spatial narrative.
Sustainability, understood as an ethical commitment, guides the choice of materials and local processes, while the pursuit of authenticity is expressed through constructive honesty and the tactile presence of craftsmanship.
Projects such as the Art Villas complex or Gran Fierro restaurant in Prague reveal this poetics of balance—between the raw and the refined, between geometric precision and emotion. With works like Studio House, a finalist for the Dezeen Awards 2025, Formafatal reaffirms its vocation to create spaces that are not only inhabited but deeply felt.
Project by Dagmar Štěpánová
