Las Olas House by Young Projects in the Dominican Republic

Project: Las Olas House Architects: Young Projects Location: Dominican Republic Area: 20,000 sq ft Photography: Provided by Young Projects

Las Olas House by Young Projects

The Las Olas House, also known as the Retreat House, is an incredibly stunning tropical home designed by the New York-based studio Young Projects. It's a massive house offering 20,000 square feet of magnificent living spaces that connect both internally and externally, including two guest houses and a yoga pavilion. Of course, the main feature of this design is the maximum use of its spectacular surroundings.

Located on fertile, previously undeveloped land in Playa Grande, Dominican Republic, the retreat house designed by New York-based architecture studio Young Projects sits at the edge of dense tropical forest on one side and pristine beach on the other. Known as 'Las Olas House,' this 20,000 square foot villa is designed with both facades of the plot in mind, drawing inspiration from the rich natural environment and the owners' interest in organizing large family and friend gatherings for relaxation centered on health and creative exchange.

The retreat house is the centerpiece of a 4.5-acre complex extending to the ocean, which also includes two guest houses, a yoga pavilion and a relaxation building near the beach. All buildings and interiors were designed by Young Projects, with gentle winding paths connecting each part. 'These carefully planned walks preserve the natural environment of the site, subtly altering the landscape at key points to transform the wild jungle into habitable space,' says Young Projects' lead architect Brian Yong.

Guests arrive at the retreat house via a narrow road through tropical gardens, approaching the building on a stone and gravel walkway. The open entrance, clad in weathered ipe wood, leads under the house and up terracotta steps to a cool central courtyard. Views of the ocean and horizon open up, creating a sense of arrival. Yong describes the ascent as 'a moment of compression that releases in the courtyard and dramatic revelation of ocean and horizon views.'

Essentially, the retreat house is a courtyard plan where internal rooms form a ring around the central courtyard that dramatically flows to the beach at the front of the plot. The ring shifts and changes shape around the most spectacular natural elements, including an ancient vine-covered tree with bromeliads and other symbiotic species at the center of the courtyard. A sunken seating area near the base of this tree offers space for intimate meetings or breakfasts in diffused morning light.

The courtyard's exterior side is made of white concrete cast into forms from palm stems collected on site. The stems were cut to various lengths to create an abstract yet organic and textured structure for this central area. The sloped surface plays with light and shadow. 'In one sense, it's a living room in the jungle,' says Noah Marchinya, project manager and partner at Young Projects.

The canopy of the forest becomes another architectural idea for the house: the roof nearly touches the lower leaves of the canopy but does not disrupt it. The roof is a defining element of the dwelling. Made from 160 open corrugated trusses that change form and rotate, it curves along the top of the house, emphasizing its semi-circular shape and panoramic experience of the site. The wife compared the animated roof geometry to yoga poses.

Overall, the interior spaces of the house provide privacy and constantly point to the impressive landscape outside. Dramatic spatial moments and views of stunning natural landscapes permeate every room, forming the flow of movement through the house. 'The sense of discovery constantly moves you from one zone to another,' explains Yong. Each of the seven bedrooms has a flow of natural light and a private terrace for observing the jungle and ocean. The most spectacular is the master bedroom, which extends beyond the second floor with a panoramic view in all directions. The terrace has a personal meditation and yoga area, specifically designed for the wife.

Common interior spaces also leverage a lifestyle that blends inside and outside, oriented toward large windows and doors that can be fully opened to reveal spacious terraces and expansive views. The kitchen, representing a '24-hour delicatessen,' serves picnics on the terrace or beach. For more formal dinners, two large tables by Paolo Lenti made from lava stone and black-green glaze tiles are installed in the dining room, seating 28 people, along with high glass doors opening from three sides for outdoor dinners.

The open living room is a dramatic space with double height reaching 30 feet, featuring visible ceiling trusses from Young Projects, from which rattan lights by Bover are suspended. The Elephant Table, also designed by Young Projects, is the central element of the room. This composition of six polished stone slabs from Mesa Quartzite can be disassembled to serve as stools, podiums or side tables, or assembled into one large table for larger groups. The table has personal significance to the owners as each element represents a different family member (two parents and four children).

In other parts of the room, several seating zones and informal communication tables face inward toward an individual bar or directly out to a pool or ocean just beyond the room. The pool itself features an infinity edge facing the ocean, with a shallow area including a wide swimming zone where loungers can be submerged.

Similarly, the family room draws attention to both internal and external events. An integrated entertainment zone and suspended shelves from mahogany and steel become a central point, while high glass doors on three sides open the natural surroundings of the house, becoming another attractive element. Adjacent is a terrace zone with a weathered ipe wood roof (result of the second floor), serving as a smoking room, play area and movie viewing zone. Concrete benches and terraced steps provide seating or rest areas, with the roof equipped with a hidden projector that lowers down to transform the entire area into an open-air cinema with three levels for 30-50 viewers.

Similar to the family room, it draws attention to both internal and external events. An integrated entertainment zone and suspended shelves from mahogany and steel become a central point, while high glass doors on three sides open the natural surroundings of the house, becoming another attractive element. Adjacent is a terrace zone with a weathered ipe wood roof (result of the second floor), serving as a smoking room, play area and movie viewing zone. Concrete benches and terraced steps provide seating or rest areas, with the roof equipped with a hidden projector that lowers down to transform the entire area into an open-air cinema with three levels for 30-50 viewers.

Considering this, the interior has a modern tropical style with emphasis on colors, textures and natural woods. The lower floor is dominated by rich tones: the living room features deep emerald green textiles, the dining room highlighted by a thin blue-green Venetian plaster wall behind an individual black lacquered built-in cabinet, and the library by a deep blue wall behind mahogany shelves. In contrast, second-floor bedrooms are airy and earth-toned. With emphasis on neutral tones and textiles, rattan surfaces intersect with white terrazzo floors from aluminum stone and random color and material accents. The master bedroom is equipped with an individual textured screen by Hiroko Takeda and KWH, while the guest suites have a light pink Venetian plaster wall. Furniture and decorative items were purchased from local Dominican designers (Casa Alfarera, Ysabela Molini) and boutique designers from New York (Kai Wei Hsu, Hiroko Takeda, Hollis & Morris, MVG MTNS, Egg Collective and Chen & Kai), including several custom orders through Colony Design.

Outside the retreat house, other buildings in the complex encourage personal reflection and wellness, each with a unique function and aesthetic. The Glich House is the first building visitors see upon entering the site from the tropical forest side, setting the tone for subsequent buildings, all of which draw heavily inspiration from natural surroundings. 'Instead of marking this moment with a defined boundary or gates, the Glich House strangely blends into the tropical forest landscape,' Marchinya says. 'This hints at an immersive experience that guides the overall design of the Retreat House.' A single-story residential building where staff live with 330 square feet of accessible roof covered in gardens, constructed from concrete blocks (CMU) and flat CMU walls oriented in a wavering grid with external surfaces covered by more than 10,000 hand-painted encaustic cement tiles in bright blue, turquoise, green and yellow colors resembling camouflage patterns.

Closer to the retreat house, the Guest House is a quiet, sunny 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom oasis for additional guests. The building consists of a series of four identical suites, oriented under one roof where shaded zones between each bedroom create shared external spaces. The orientation of the structure was defined by two tall, ancient ficus trees (called Avatar and Younger Avatar by architects), located in a neighboring open space; each room offers views of one of the two trees through full-wall panoramic windows located at foot of bed. Situated in a single zone on fertile land, which is naturally an open area, the house is slightly removed from the shade of the tropical forest canopy and receives significant direct sunlight. It can also serve as accommodation and studio for visiting artists, functioning as a creative residency.

Next to the shore, the Stone House and yoga pavilion become areas focused on mindful exercise, meditation and relaxation. The Stone House integrates into the very edge of the beach as a cluster of six stone masses - the overall geometry resembles naturally weathered rock formations or strange ruins. Inside, six caves house an open massage area, underground sauna, cold bath, treatment room and steam and outdoor showers. In the yoga pavilion by the shore, a large overhanging roof eave provides shade and rain protection for group yoga classes, musical performances and outdoor dinners with ocean views. The roof itself is a wide terrace of ipe wood, bounded by an infinity water feature on each side and offering expansive continuous views of the Dominican coastline.

–Young Projects