Follow Nature!

La Pedrera, Uruguay

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A Sensitive High Rise City-Building. Model-prototype destined to temperate and sunny areas

Follow Nature!

La Pedrera, Uruguay

Firm

Estudio Matias Sambarino Arquitecto

Type

Residential › Private House

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2014

SIZE

1000 sqft - 3000 sqft

BUDGET

$100K - 500K

Photos

Matias (3)

The idea is simple. To face the design as if properly the external natural elements mold the layout, in order to produce an adapted, comfortable, versatile and energy efficient house, located in a temperate suburban area in the southern hemisphere.

Tracks of erosion and contours lines give clues of where and how is the better way to useful take advantage of the plot and make insight of which is the more adapted form to work with.

The wind affect in a complex way because while strong winds are from Southern quadrant daily winds came from the North-east. Hence the house should be shaped to create shield for both.

The sun is used as the main if not the only source of energy. In consequence another complexity is faced, as long as the layout need to create a good atmosphere inside and a valuable micro climate outside, whilst the ocean is in the opposite way, to south east direction.

When all tensions are mixed and work over the framework nodes, and they react in a collaborative way, the outcome is an organized and highly complex composition that can be confined –theoretically- within the boundaries of self-organization concept. All components and details act to reinforce that notion, resulting is a whole that seems become part of nature.

Is worth noting that here has not an opposition between machine-made hand-made Architecture. Instead we take all the resources at hand in a typical South American country to useful apply them in an cooperative and accumulative way, promoting one invigorating experience.

While the basic structure is constructed in concrete the house is mainly built with regional hard wood which, machine processed, was transformed manually. Aluminum windows needed a manual refining, further from standardization, to mold and assemble in the composition. Recycled elements was also incorporated