Achio House

They might not admit it, but some architects believe that architecture would be easier without the client. Though without the client there’s no one to pay for the work. So for those architects, the dream client would come in with a program, tell the architect to design something, and then just get out of the way.

That’s just what happened to Guillermo Garita and Arthur Haritos. Their client, an automobile importer and exporter, came to them with a program for a second home in Costa Rica. He needed an office for himself, a garage big enough to house several cars, and a few bedrooms. Garita and Haritos then made a modest proposal to the client.

"We proposed to him that we should present the project in one go," Garita said. "The gamble would be that if he accepted the design, it would be built. And if not, we would abandon it."

The client accepted their proposal.

Garita and Haritos then began the design process, which lasted about eight months of intensive work before they showed anything to the client again.

"The process was almost like a testing ground of how two architects could work together," Garita said. "Who would put the first line on paper?"

Haritos describes that collaborative process: "There was a series of small models. Each time an element was fashioned, there was an exhaustive dialogue before anything was settled. It was a dialogue that considered issues—some of them idiosyncratic, some of them more universal in nature."

The architects first addressed the siting of the house. It sits on a fairly large plot for its square footage, so the architects decided to divide the outdoors into three separate yards, opening the house up to its surroundings. Then, the pair began to address aesthetics.