Project name: PATAGONIA COMPLEX
Project location: PATAGONIA, CHILE
Completion Year: 2019
Building area (m²): 750 m2
Photo credits: PABLO CASALS AGUIRRE
The Patagonia complex is located along a small bay in a lake in Southern Chile.
The lake’s main feature is its lack of access by land, only made available by boat. This means that the project’s construction was an important challenge to carry out.
The assignment was to design a set of houses for a very large family where all the enclosures and common spaces face the lake and volcano, the area’s iconic geographic landmarks.
The houses were designed to take advantage of as much natural light as possible throughout the day, creating very bright spaces, even though being immersed in a native forest with trees over 20 meters high.
The location and its surroundings; a flat land with an unobstructed view towards the lake and volcano, oriented towards the North, to make the most of the natural light, with a shady native forest behind it that covers the whole hill and works as a natural wall protecting the land from the wind and rain.
The strategy was to intervene the land as little as possible. The houses are built on a single level where independent volumes are raised sharing a common space in between for family gatherings.
The project’s major challenge was its construction process. The availability and distribution of materials and labor in the area were some of the many difficulties that were overcome.