Ilona House / Grupo Culata Jovái

Curated by ArchDaily

Architects: Grupo Culata Jovái
Year: 2013
Photographs:Federico Cairoli

Text description provided by the architects. A Spanish photographer living in Paraguay, 12 years after "escaping" the Spanish economic boom.

A tight budget financed the purchase of a house in downtown Asuncion, the renovations needed to turn the property into a hostel and the architect's fees.

A house built in 1920, with a traditional "chorizo" typology, which had undergone renovations completely dissociated from the original building.

Bearing brick walls 0.30 m thick. Wooden Roof Structure entirely inhabited by kupi'i (termites in Guarani) + tiles and shingles. The "additions": in front, a structure covers the old terrace and at the back, a second floor adds a bedroom.

What was logical for us was to do what we think is architecture, especially in times of crisis.

"Taking advantage of the resources available to solve most problems. Dissociating the -project- from the -ego- to address real and essential problems of habitability."

We decided to use a corrugated sheet metal roof with "C" profiles for the inevitable change of roof.

Building an Outside. Human dwelling is a complex activity, we dwell according to our human-personal condition and in relationship to the other. A family home serves as for resting purposes just as a hostel, where each individual owns their personal space and also shares the community space; the difference lies in the degree of inter-personal relationship.

Living and circulating, in private and in correlation with others; here the spaces are sized according to the ratio of fluxes of such actions. We intervened a space for private circulation, corresponding to a single family house, and expanded the intermediate living and common circulation space.

A wall, a quarry, material available. The bricks recovered from the demolition make up the new boundary outside, it ceases to be a load-bearing wall, with a thickness of 0.15 m. and breaks that give enough inertia to withstand a longitudinal slab 8 cm thick, lightened with rubble from the demolition. Over it, a continuous wall made of bricks in zigzag encloses the rooms.

We assume the "additions" without dogmatic prejudices of the restoration. For privacy and to provide natural cross ventilation, we built a filter-wall on the facade with ceramic shingles from the demolition of the original roof.

We reuse, conserve and transform all the original openings, floors and demolition woodwork for mezzanines. The project was delivered with a minimum level of finishes, only the essentials to live a healthy and quality space. The living and program will finish the house, these correspond to a very intimate aesthetic of a client / friend / artist, who from this home / business / life-trench aims to tell a story from the image.

A story of how today it is giving refuge to Spaniards who come to look for work in a country that provided them the labor to build the m2 that partly generated the bubble from which they flee today.