Casa Delpin by Fuster + Partners // San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Converted from a typical 1940’s house by Nataniel Fúster, Casa Delpín is the product of the renovation and addition to an existing single-family structure located on a small lot on the Miramar sector in San Juan. The existing structure was typical of many suburban houses in the metropolitan area with dark, hot, segregated interior spaces that negated any relationship between the interior and the exterior.

The design objective was to create a spatially rich living experience and provide for a greater capacity for passive lighting and cooling, while also allowing for the use of mechanical cooling when needed. The main character of the addition is natural light, which vertically penetrates and diffuses throughout the house through deep cylindrical skylights and GRC screens/ glass to reflect on the exposed materials and watery surface of the pool. “It’s like living with a light show,” says Carlos Delpin, who rebuilt the house last year with his wife, Eneida Nuñez. “We’ve spent countless hours just watching the light change.” The spatially and temporally dramatic quality of the pool brings climatic focus to both the dinning and living rooms that border it on two sides.

[Images courtesy of Fuster + Partners and dwell. Photography by Raimund Koch.]