The assignment is a single unit house in a residential
park in northern Santiago.
The sites, around 5000 m2 each and mostly surrounded
by golf fields and green areas, have the constant presence of the Andes, high
temperatures during summer time and winds from the south. The project seeks to incorporate
the landscape in the household daily life, following the client’s request who
wanted to spend a long time throughout the year in the exterior spaces
The site has a park towards the north, a street on the
west side and another one on the south side, where the main access is located. The
house is placed towards the corner of the two streets with the intention of freeing
the garden, creating continuity with the park and clearing the views towards the
east mountain range.
All the interior spaces are organized around an 8 x 8
m central patio that gathers part of the terrain and incorporates it inside the house.
Delimited by the ceiling slab, this patio opens its north face to project the
view towards the garden. A water mirror runs across a third of its surface
reinforcing this perspective through a porch. The public areas constantly participate
of the patio, from the main access to the family room, articulating the service
areas towards the west. On the east side, a double-height wall lightly closes
the private area without losing its participation of the patio and accompanies
the ascension to the master bedroom. From there, it is possible to go out into
a vast porch that dominates the landscape, where the barbecue area and the
swimming pool are placed at a certain distance using the site in all of its
extension.
Some peripheral walls are prolonged to direct the
views and close the house against the winds and nearby streets. In addition, the
slabs extend as eaves to protect tall windows from the sun and to cover the
terraces. These architectonic elements radicalize the opening of the interior spaces,
deepening their presence from the outside.