Article source: Schmidt Architects Associates 

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.

Image Courtesy © Schmidt Architects Associates

• Architects: Schmidt Architects Associates
• Project: House Workshop
• Location: Prihueico Lake, Chile
• Structural Engineer: Enzo Valladares
• Site area: 40 hectares.
• Built area: 95m2
• Project date: 2006
• Construction date: 2007
• Principal materials: Structural oak columns/beams
• External envelope: Glazing, tongue and groove pine
• Internal: Cladding pine joinery
• Roof: Galvanized sheet