The Bella Vita Villa is a contemporary oceanfront retreat integrating indoor / outdoor living, designed by Prototype Design Lab, located in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The villa explores lightness, filtering natural breezes, layers of transparency and integrating indoor / outdoor spaces within dynamic patterns of light and shadow, providing a simple frame within which a contemporary sustainable lifestyle can unfold.

Description from the architects: The beachfront facade is almost entirely sliding glass openings to maximize on the view, natural light andfresh breeze of the ocean. The villa is wrapped on the top and bottom by solid concrete bands which extend along the sides of the house to become the solid entrance facade.

The entrance evokes a fortress-like grandeur, into which a masterfully crafted, poured-in place concrete frame successively recedes toward an door of a more intimate human scale. This drama is counterbalanced by the old-world beauty of an original, hand-carved wood door, reclaimed and imported from India. Lighting helps nighttime visitors appreciate the full effect of the majestic doorway, with its receding concrete panels.

The layering continues in the foyer with a custom lace patterned grand staircase cantilevered off of a board-form concrete wall.The connection between the expansive deck, LED-lit negative-edge pool, and living spaces is dynamicand direct.

At the heart of the house, an expansive great room is an entertainer’s dream, featuring 30-foot ceilings, a large chef’s kitchen and a twosided indoor-outdoor fireplace above which sunlight is filtered through the custom laser-cut chimney pattern. The secluded white beach is a focal point with which almost every room in the villa enjoys a connection.

Let there be lightness: sunlight streams through the open beachside facade, filtering through the custom cut-steel fireplace to create patterned shadows within. By night, its illuminated column serves as a beacon when viewed form the beach.

The grand staircase lives up to its name. The drama is created using laser-cut steel panels designed by the architect, fabricated in Toronto, and then shipped to the island along with reclaimed heavy-timber beams for the stairs.

The villa’s bathrooms incorporate floating fixtures of glass and chrome played against black Brazilian slate walls and floors.

Lower-level beachfront bedrooms have the added benefit of direct access to the deck and pool areas.

Photos: Eugen Sakhnenko / A-Frame