Medina Dugger

The Vista Rama Beach House in Lagos by CmD+A

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The Vista Rama beach house is a tropical 3 room ‘get-away’  designed by CMD+A, located along a vast coastal beach in the Badagry axis, an area that has fast become the destination for beach tourism and leisure.

Vista Rama is a prime example of what some would describe as “the Lagos beach house”, a residential typology that is slowly becoming the standard for strips of beach such as this, with little to no road access, remaining exclusive to local villagers and avid visitors.

Development regulations and planning laws are yet to be implementated in these ‘rural’ locations as such CMD+A had the freedom to design without restraint, but, chose to create a minimal tropical building conscious of its environment and surrounds with use of local materials in the process.

Here’s their description,

We approached our brief attempting to address the question of how a Lagosian would intend to enjoy spending time at the Beach. Our emphasis was to ensure we had a the pool partially shaded as we had observed that most Lagosians prefer to be in the shade than in the sun. This factor informed the orientation of the building form.

DRAWINGS AND RENDERINGS © CMD+A

The design of the house also gives no hierarchy to any of the three bedrooms.  As this is not a permanent home, groups of friends or family may visit and no preference was to be given to any dwelling space.

The building is constructed out of reinforced concrete and sandcrete block; standard local building materials,  we however clad the building in willow-reed, a  material locally sourced from Badadgry  and transported along the lagoon to the peninsular.   It grows at lengths of up to 6 meters  and has a consistent girth ranging from 20-35mm along its length.  This makes it a viable cladding material.  It is also durable as it is not susceptible to terminates or erosion.

The building took 11 months to finish and was completed in November 2015. The Vista Rama beach house has also been entered for the Africa Architecture Awards so feel free to check it out on their site among other submissions from across the continent.

IMAGES © MEDINA DUGGER

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