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Architects: Urzúa Soler Arquitectos
- Area: 330 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Miguel Salinas
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Manufacturers: Cintac, Hunter Douglas, Santa blanca
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Lead Architects: Nicolas Urzúa S., Mauricio Urzúa U., Mauricio Urzúa S.
Text description provided by the architects. The project corresponds to a single-family home located in a dense forest in the Andes Mountains, Las Trancas, Chile. As a starting point, it was decided to configure the project as a horizontal programmatic bar, articulated in identical sections built on steel H beams and columns (with modules of 3 x 3 x 6 meters), which adapt to the topography of the land as they progress, extending their supports and suspending the living space of the house.
At the center of the bar, and modulated in the same way with steel triangles arranged every 3 meters, rests an inclined roof that favors mediation with the climate, while protecting and providing air to the public programs with a double-height void. On the other hand, it also contains the bedrooms on the second level as private spaces.
In this way, the house proposes a regular, symmetric, and orderly system that contrasts with an irregular and random environment in terms of topography and tree cover. A rational structure that expresses its framework and its module through an incremental system, separating the artificial from the natural and, nevertheless, seeks to merge them by intertwining the rhythms, shadows, opacity, and colors of the landscape with the constant, flat, and dark sequence of the project.
The continuous framework, protected by the wide gabled roof, acts as a metallic and hard block with a warm and pleasant interior character. On the outside, it is entirely wrapped in a folded metal skin resembling planks, which only reveals its skeleton, making it evident and expressing it in its regular rhythm, while allowing interactions with the mountain climate, which presents extreme cold temperatures, snow accumulation, and constant rainfall in winter, along with the heat and constant sun exposure of summer.
Furthermore, the entire interior of the project (floors, walls, and ceilings) is lined with a pine wood cladding, which protects it from direct exposure and creates an open, single-material, and continuous space in the heart of the social area of the home.
In programmatic terms, the lower ends house the protected outdoor service areas and terraces, leaving access through the center of the house, and then separating the public areas (barbecue areas and living room) from the private areas (bedrooms) on each side of the nave. It is for the latter that the project inserts two large skylights that cover the full height of the roof, opening light and views from the upper rooms, aligning with the center of each grid. On the first level, the bar becomes translucent in complete modules throughout its various programs, in such a way as to adjust its brightness, seek views of the landscape and the volcano, and contain its interiority by regulating the open areas.
