Designing a Hurricane Proof Property In Antigua

I recently posted a story about my newest commission to design a beachfront villa on the Caribbean island of Antigua. I posted my preliminary sketches of the building that I presented to the client a couple of weeks ago and now my team have finished most of the renders so I would like to present them here to the community. Firstly here are the two sketches again, but this time alongside the renders my team have created.

So you will notice that although the rear of the villa that faces the beach is more or less just like my conceptual sketch, however the front of the villa is quite different. The reason for this simple. Hurricanes. It was brought to my attention after the initial presentation that any new buildings in these islands need to follow stringent regulations regarding hurricane proofing. The elegant pitched roof that is often part of many of my designs had to go and be replaced by a more austere solid flat roof of strong concrete. It was after contacting a local architectural firm on the island that my client asked me to work with that I started to modify other aspects of the design too.

You can see on the aerial view here that I have sacrificed all the beauty that I often like to present with steeply pitched rooflines and gentle eaves, skylights and open courtyards. Instead it's become almost monolithic in its structure but I take comfort that unless you have a helicopter you will not see...:)

I was excited however to take this idea of strength and resilience and create an interior that immediately felt strong and secure when you enter the house. These timber clad columns are stylish and beautiful but at the same time they give a feeling of structural integrity that says "hurricane proof". The natural stone walls also re-enforce the overall concept of safety and strength. I wanted to make the owners feel safe in their home regardless of what mother nature threw at them. By using natural materials like stone and solid timber I think it works.

The main living spaces rendered above feature very high ceilings. Double volume ceilings are essential to give the feeling of space. I love to make the open stairs in these kind of projects an actual feature of the interior. Of course they need to be functional but stairs should be beautiful. They should draw the visitor's eye. Visitors should be intrigued about where they go and feel drawn to climbing them. They should also offer a commanding view of the living space so that when the owner descends them in the morning their home is laid out beneath them.

Here is the master bedroom. It looks out over the pool and the sea. I am yet to visit the site so I'm only envisioning the view of the sea from photos they have shown me. The bedroom faces the east so the sun will pour into the bedroom in the morning. I have used interior colours and materials to compliment the colours of the Caribbean though I may change final colours palette after my first visit when construction begins.

I hope you like how the project is developing. I am presenting these renders to my client early next week. Im so excited to visit the site in a couple of months when construction starts. Designing a beachfront villa on an island that is directly in the path of hurricanes every year is exciting and rewarding. Here are some renders of the exterior at the back of the property facing the beach. We still have many more renders that we are working on but I don't want to show you everything before the client sees....:)