Martínez House

Maipo, Región Metropolitana, Chile

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Martínez House

Maipo, Región Metropolitana, Chile

Firm

Tidy Architects

Type

Residential › Private House

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2007

SIZE

1000 sqft - 3000 sqft

Architects:
Albert Tidy
Ian Tidy

Collaborators:
Matías Pincheira
Osvaldo Salazar

Photography:
Sergio Pirrone

This is a weekend house in Aculeo Lagoon, mandated by a young couple. The site is located on a hillside that contemplates the lagoon from afar.
The house, in consequence, acts as a landscape observation post and a faraway lookout through two unique picture windows that fork in different paths and heights, to capture two distinct views.

The volume resembles a big binocular that adapts itself to the terrain. One prism follows the slope, while the other elevates itself in an opposing way, morphing the initial basic volume into a bicephalous shape.

The 140 square meters program is simple. The first volume hosts the public rooms, consisting of the living room, dining room, and kitchen in a continuous and unitary space, while the second volume hosts the private rooms, such as bedrooms and bathrooms in separate spaces. In this volume, the lake view is reserved for the master bedroom. The circulation that runs through the program, marking the different levels and both accesses at the same time, defines the geometric turning point of the house.

The entire project is built mainly in steel, both its structure as its skin, made of a plate with a thickness of 6 millimeters, with a finish consisting in a black anti-oxide paint. The objective is to synthesize a continuous expression between vertical and horizontal elements, similar to the works of artist Tony Smith, freeing the architecture from the constructive complexities found in the joint between walls and roof.