Lagoon Villa, Abidjan: SAOTA’s Modernist Dialogue with Light, Climate and Landscape

Set at the edge where Abidjan’s restless energy meets the stillness of the Ébrié Lagoon, Lagoon Villa feels both anchored and weightless. Designed by SAOTA, with interiors by Claude Missir, the home captures the quiet confidence of modernist architecture while responding instinctively to its tropical surroundings. It’s a structure that doesn’t so much sit on the landscape as breathe with it.

The villa unfolds along the waterfront, every gesture shaped by the client’s wish to blur the line between inside and out. Sunlight filters through a roof of concrete beams and skylights, casting soft patterns that shift through the day like light under leaves. Courtyards step gently down to the garden, drawing air and calm through the plan. Together, these elements create an easy rhythm of shade, light, and openness that defines the entire house.

The architecture is responsive rather than assertive. Deep overhangs temper the heat; wide sliding doors open to the lagoon breeze. Rooms expand and contract in step with the weather, offering shaded retreats and bright, open terraces in equal measure. There’s a natural equilibrium here; a sense that every volume has found its right proportion against the vast horizon of water and sky.

Claude Missir’s interiors continue the dialogue with restraint and texture rather than excess. His approach favours atmosphere over decoration. “The indoor colours were taken from the surrounding landscape,” he says. “It feels as if the inside and outside merged in a natural way.” The palette reflects this - stone, sand, and shadow; tones that shift gently with the light.

The materials are honest and enduring: exposed concrete, flamed granite, glass, timber. Nothing shouts; everything settles into place. Sustainability comes quietly too, through natural ventilation and the soft choreography of daylight that makes the house glow without effort.

Lagoon Villa is more than a home. It’s an act of translation, taking the clarity of modernism and shaping it for a humid, equatorial world. The result is both disciplined and deeply human, a piece of architecture that looks outward to the lagoon yet feels private and grounded within.

Abidjan’s long modernist heritage runs through the project like a current. It’s a city that has always embraced experimentation, and Lagoon Villa stands easily within that lineage- a contemporary expression of light, air, and proportion.

At Design Diary International, we see Lagoon Villa as an exercise in quiet confidence. It reminds us that modern architecture doesn’t need to dominate its setting to make an impact. Sometimes, it’s enough for it to listen to the light, the climate, and the slow, steady pulse of the landscape it inhabits.

Name of Project: Lagoon Villa

Design Team: SAOTA

Interior: Claude Missir Interiors

Location: Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Photographer: Adam Letch