The construction crews balked. several sets of them, in fact. The project for which they had been hired—a modern house in El Salvador, designed by architect Jose Roberto Paredes for his family of four—was simply too difficult to build, they said. "People kept quitting," recalls Paredes, whose blueprints included oddly angled concrete walls and floor-to-ceiling glass panels. "In our country, any move away from conventional methods is sure to cause chaos."
But Paredes, 35, was determined to give his family—which includes his wife, Patty del Cid; 15-year-old Pilar; and 4-year-old Jimena—its dream house. Besides, the architect is used to converting skeptics. When he founded his design studio in San Salvador four years ago, he named it Cincopatasalgato, from a popular Spanish expression meaning "five paws on a cat"—a metaphor for searching for the impossible.
Fortunately, Paredes's wife, an advertising creative director, shares his adventurous spirit. The couple had been living with their two daughters (Pilar is del Cid's child from her first marriage) and fantasizing about a place where they could spread out when they discovered the perfect property, about 15 minutes away: a lush slope with views to the nearby Pacific, where they love to swim and surf.
Paredes spent nine months interviewing his wife and daughters about what they wanted, then sketching—and resketching—their future house. "I spend a lot of time designing for other people, but creating our own place was one of the hardest things I've ever done," he says. "I couldn't get my mind together." After he completed his design and, yes, found a cooperative construction crew to build the place, his family finally moved in.
Next Page: Paredes's Inspiration
