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Architects: Felipe Combeau, Andrea Murtagh
- Area: 460 m²
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:Cristóbal Palma
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Lead Architects: Felipe Combeau, Andrea Murtagh
Text description provided by the architects. Two hours' drive northwest of Santiago in the exclusive coast town of Zapallar, this weekend house was designed to reveal and heighten its specific context and benefit from the gentle Mediterranean climate that the central Pacific coast of Chile offers. Three specific site characteristics forced this project to search for a particular arrangement. First, the lot has a little ocean view bounded by a neighbor's house and a group of pine trees. Second, north sun exposure is almost perpendicular to the ocean view, and third, the site is limited to a protected creek full of conifers and native species.
The program was divided into three buildings to create a “village-like” house so as to articulate mass and void and thus provide multiple and different experiences. The largest two-story building has on the ground floor three bedrooms with a creek view. On the second floor the master bedroom, bathroom, and TV lounge occupy the entire open-plan level with a privileged ocean view. The second largest and one-story building houses the living and dining room which opens generously to cross breeze and surrounding outdoor spaces. The third and smaller building on the ground floor contains the kitchen and on the upper floor, there is a bunk room.
The three buildings altogether are organized around a clear center: a 7x7m courtyard surrounded by an ambulatory corridor that together forms a “connection core” allowing different ways to circulate and cross indoor-outdoor spaces. The existing 20% natural site slope forced make a necessary wide cut-and-fill platform for the house to stand and to allow the ground floor to expand outside. In this way, the entire perimeter of the house becomes a sequence of active outdoor spaces like terraces, courtyards, arrival, and pathways.
A timeless and strict aesthetic approach was pursued to resist coastal erosion as well as architectural trends. With this premise, the classical repertoire was displayed through structural walls, symmetry, poché, major and minor axes, courts, hierarchies, window proportions, balancing center and peripheries, and the selection of three dominant materials: lime stucco, sawn local granite floors and beech wood for doors, built-in furniture, floors, and ceilings. The result of this building arrangement is a calm and sober house with many inviting places for big family life. It is a dichotomous house inspired by classical and modern values that Incidentally avoided the standard two-dimensional ocean-view-driven layout.
