PROJECT LO CONTADOR HOUSE
BUILT AREA 180 sqm plus storage unit
LOCATION Lo Contador street, Providencia, Santiago. Chile
PROJECT YEAR 2015
TERRAIN SURFACE 400 sqm
MATERIALITY: Metal frame decking plate and slab structure; EIFS insulation exterior walls and polyurethane coating of roof. Outer skin of treated dry pine wood and coated with enamel.
ARCHITECT: Gabriel Navarrete Parra –www.gnparquitectos.com - www.ateliergnp.com
BUILDING COMPANY: DA construcciones
CALCULATION ENGINEER: Walter Navarrete D
PHOTOGRAPHER Sebastián Sepúlveda Vidal
SOFTWARE USED Autocad 2d and 3d – Photoshop - 3d studio
FUNDAMENTALS
The main intention of this house renovation project was to create a central and predominant garden area (nonexistent due to the original placement of the house), and at the same time highlight and enhance the position of the house facing the hill, which was originally ignored.
COMPOSITION AND DEVELOPMENT
In order to accomplish the above, 60% of the original house had to be demolished, maintaining only a parallelepiped volume with gabled roof, which became the compositional module for the project. Over the original volume, a second outer skin of wooden slabs was disposed laid out, with the intention of, on the one hand, achieving the desired reading of the volumetric element, and on the other hand, creating a ventilated facade (the original house had very poorly thermal insulation)
The project was composed of 3 volumes; original volume of the ground floor + second floor volume rotated to the dominant view + new ground floor volume, rotated relative to the prior two, in order to maintain an independent reading of the 3 elements.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Special emphasis was placed on the coherence between the exterior and the interior, both regarding the volumetric reading and its spatiality. This is achieved through external volumes spanning into the interior, whilst keeping the configuration if the original roof.
Along the same lines, the meeting point of the three volumes becomes evident from both the outside and inside through a double-height space formed by the three geometric forms, which constitutes the house’s geometric articulator facing the entrance, and containing the staircase, therefore making it also the functional articulator of the house.
The outer skin of wooden slabs not only creates a ventilated façade, but also allows for the entire volume to be read encompassing both wall and ceiling, in a simple and recognizable geometry but with a visual texture that enriches the experience of the approach by discovering the details.