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Bursting from a Cliff, Villa Amanzi is the Embodiment of Calm

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The Villa Amanzi is a Japanese-inspired modern home in Thailand that is suspended from the side of a cliff overlooking Kamala Beach.

The amazing engineering and precarious position, attached to a sheer cliff drop, is belied by the serenity and stability of the house.

The Buddha keeps you calm and grounded while you swim in the endless pool cantilevered out above the limpid blue of the Andaman Sea.

The steel girders of the two-way open outdoor room by the pool are anchored right into the very rocky planet that supplies the raw materials that are the foundation of all architecture.

The materials that we use to build buildings – that over the centuries have become so very high tech and apparently removed from nature – all begin with such simple elements as this gigantic rock.

Iron ore to make the steel for girders like these, that are plowed right back  into the rock, begins with ground-up rocks like these.

The calm feeling is shattered when you realize just how extreme is the positioning of the house, clinging to a cliff, with its seemingly tranquil pool amazingly cantilevered out from the house.

One wing of the second floor bedrooms is anchored into the cliff face above the outdoor living area, and the master bedroom wing is perpendicular to that.

Not just the master bedrooms but all three children have bedrooms that command views of the ocean and can be opened back and front to allow the sweeping monsoon winds to cool them.

What an experience for them to grow up in this extraordinary and imaginative architecture.

Behind the cantilevered master bedroom, greenery grows up into a sky-framing cutout space that offers an endless sky view to echo the endless ocean in front.

The plan is clean and simple, perched on the Andaman Sea to the south, suspended between the dramatic cliff face and the clear azure ocean.

It’s an amazing house, in a magical location, with magnificent engineering.