The word “emptyness” is the informal term that we use to refer to the absence of content of a container or place. For the architecture, probably for the most orthodox, it is the absence of artificial or natural references, where everything is in the habit of being sustained almost acts. The desert is always a challenge for the architecture and probably the most similar thing to nothing. The absence of modals forces to a major degree of search in this particular landscape, which will be able to be defined of many forms, but it will never be one “not place “.
The brief from this young couple was to design both living accommodation and studio space for sculpture & painting. Located in a millenary old forest of towering trees, on the shores of Lake Pirihueico in the south of Chile.
The proposal was to make a brightly lit and welcoming refuge, which inhabits the rough nature of its environment, enjoying this from within a core which maintains its distance, but at the same time both integrates with and emphasizes its surroundings. Formally it assimilates the vernacular architecture of the south, with large (overhanging??) roofs and simple rounded geometric volumes roughened?? through the ageing of the timber. The building form is not willful given the wet summers and extremely snow filled winters experienced by this remote lake set amongst the foothills of the Andes, but at the same time it contributes to the fantastic existing nature of the place.
Located on the outskirts of the city of Santiago de Chile, in the Valley of Chicureo, “Los Bosques house” belongs to a young family who previously lived in an apartment in a high density area of the district of Las Condes, Downtown Santiago.
For them the expression of contemporary house played a key role in the project. Simple lines, flexible spaces, outside-inside connection and a central courtyard were part of their duties.
The commission was to develop a house under the standards of the real estate business, a basic and optimized program complemented by a strategy of exterior terraces and main rooms open to the panoramic view.
In response to a sunken site with a gentle slope, with glimpses of ocean views, the program aims to raise the programmatic piano nobile of the house, from the perpendicular overlap of 2 volumes of simple lines that make up a new dimension. The first, in elevation, in the direction of the views of the bay, which makes up the access and contains the public spaces.
The commission was to develop a house under the standards of the real estate business, a basic and optimized program complemented to a strategy of exterior terraces and main rooms open to panoramic views.
Considering the terraced, square site with an average slope, with “moments” with an ocean view, we decided to set back the house to the back of the site, constituting a broad and long facade, taking the highest point of the site and a more panoramic view of the environment.
The house is located on land used for farming in the original house, with fruit trees planted in an area of 900 m2, where many of the existing trees are maintained, the construction does not alter the natural condition of the land, we work on a platform with a new level + -0.00, which, together with easing the construction, raises the view to the trees of the place.
The commission consisted of the construction of a shelter for a family that will house two large areas. In the first, the space around the fire and the kitchen to be constituted as a module without divisions, with the fireplace, wood stove and a play room. And in the second, a module for the bedrooms and bathrooms.
This house is set on a 1,060 sqm site in the last flat urban area of eastern Santiago before the Andes begin.
The plot is 15m wide by 67m length with an existing garden with mature 40 year old trees.
The original house, built back in the 70’s, took no particular advantage of the garden. Despite being uninhabited for almost 20 years the backyard was luckily well preserved and felt like a forgotten park.
The project is located on a site with a special feature; it is 25 meters wide and 100 meters deep, which allows us to develop a 4-storey building occupying almost the entire ground surface. This gives the project a protagonist scale in the neighborhood.
The strategy to not “keep” the dimensions of the property (pre-existing length and width), was to organize the program of the school within a large regular volume, based on a double bay corridor, alternating classrooms and playgrounds in different levels and on both sides of the central circulation. This allowed us to open cross perspectives on the site, with views of the mountains and the sunset.
email
Facebook
Twitter
RSS Feed
