The Red Pepper House

In the mangrove forests of Lamu Island, the Red Pepper House emerges between ancient trees, its organic form dissolving into the landscape.

Designed by Urko Sanchez Architects, the residence sits lightly on the earth, preserving the site as found. Rather than clearing vegetation, the architecture yields to nature, building only where the forest allows, leaving the mangroves untouched.

Small coral stone pavilions, reminiscent of Lamu's traditional architecture, are scattered like found objects across the site. Their white-washed walls glow softly at dusk, creating pockets of intimacy within the wilderness. Above them floats a single expansive makuti roof, its intricate palm thatch canopy supported by slender timber columns that frame views of the forest and sea beyond. The polished concrete floor flows from interior lounges past dining spaces to the pool's edge, where trees rise through circular openings in the deck, the architecture bending to accommodate each trunk.

At night, lanterns cast dancing shadows across the open pavilion, while dappled light filters through bamboo screens in the bathrooms, where freestanding tubs overlook the forest canopy. Here, the boundary between inside and outside disappears entirely, you bathe beneath the sky, dine among the trees, sleep within walls but always under the protective embrace of that soaring roof.