-
Architects: Chip Studio
- Area: 135 m²
- Year: 2021
-
Photographs:Nicolás Provoste C.
-
Manufacturers: AutoDesk
-
Lead Architects: Cecibel Gonzalez, Carlos Macas.
Text description provided by the architects. A rural lot on the outskirts of Loja, with an irregular topography allows the exploration of a composition with volumes of different proportions in a productive rural house based on the logic of production systems and circular economy. The location seeks to blend in, but at the same time to open up to the landscape, therefore, one of the design premises was to establish layers of the landscape according to the routes and pauses that the spatial arrangement of the house allows.
The composition logic of the project is based on geometry, layout, and voids. The geometric operations allow the establishment of programmatic container volumes rotated towards the landscape. The void linked to the portal acts as a pause and a link, and the double height is an approximation of the light. Indeterminacy is used as a strategy to dissolve the limit between the nature of the productive landscape and the object. A house in which its access is not predictable.
The user requirements are resolved at two levels. The parents value the continuous interaction between the inhabitants/family members, the production of their own food, the recycling of resources, as well as enjoy leisure time. Therefore, the work and leisure spaces are arranged in an open way, being an extension of the external natural environment.
On the first floor, there is a master bedroom, living room + porch, and kitchen + orchard. The wet areas are unified and face the back of the lot. For Lida, the garden is a fundamental element, her passion for plants and the production and preparation of her own food requires a space to combine these activities. The reflection of the layout is essential, it avoids hiding and shows the space for what it is: a productive space in direct contact with all areas of the house. The second level responds to the industrial-rural housing of the single warehouse type of flexible and adaptable use, transforming the user into an inhabitant and configurator of the space. Continuing with the reflection on multispecies living and respect for the pre-existing ecosystems, the project proposes spaces for the various animals (dogs, cats, birds) that are the original inhabitants of the place.
The materiality is fundamentally resolved with a steel structure configured in a support grid that adapts to the rotation of the volumes and the lightness of the productive structures. The coverage system is made up of a solid block repetition system that responds to an understanding of the environment directly linked to the rocky substrate of the territory, understanding architecture as structure and as volume.
In short, Free House allows the application of contemporary design strategies that demonstrate social changes toward ways of living such as typological diversity, modernization of forms, and direct dialogue with the landscape without alteration in the face of its versatility and flexibility. It seeks to dematerialize architecture as an object and reduce it to a background element that encourages multispecies activities and ties to happen.
