Casa Paraíso

Casa Paraíso sits on a sloping lot where the drop from the terrace to the lower lawn had become the property's problem: an unstable cut bank, eroding after every heavy rain, and a view of raw earth from the main living areas.

We engineered a terraced gabion retaining wall — three stepped tiers of galvanized wire cages filled with local stone, each with deep integrated planter beds built directly into the structure. The planting was designed for color that survives the Guanacaste dry season: bougainvillea and lantana to spill over the cages, agaves and crown-of-thorn for sculptural structure, ti plants and trailing verbena to knit the tiers together.

The gabion mass holds the mountainside: the stepped cages are flexible structures that move with the terrain, so the slope stays stable and the erosion is stopped at the wall instead of washing down the bank. What was bare, sliding earth now frames the house in color through both seasons, and the hillside drainage runs controlled behind the stone — through the geotextile and the base drain — instead of down the cut.