House / Studio Las Rúas
Olimpia Lira
ARCHITECTS
Olimpia Lira
PHOTOGRAPHS
Tomás Rodríguez
AREA
259 m²
YEAR
2011
LOCATION
Zapallar, Chile
CATEGORY
Workshop, Houses, Renovation
Text description provided by architect.
This design is based on two important issues. The client is an artist, so it had to be a house and studio at the same time; and it had to consider 6 doors, 43 long windows and 38 short Douglas Fir windows that the client had bought 28 years before, from the demolition of an old and classic hotel of the area.
The house is located 6 kilometers from the coast on a plan surrounded with hills covered with native evergreen vegetation.
It stands in the middle of the landscape like a simple and pure volume facing north, over a site free of trees and distant to hills in order to receive the maximum of direct sun light in winter.
The rectangular plan is divided in two, which define a private and a public space with different heights according to its use. This division is evident in section and from the lateral facades.
The common space (4 meters average) has the entrance, dining room, living room, studio, library and circulation.
The private area (3 meters average) has 4 rooms, bathrooms and the kitchen, all of which have access from the common space.
All of the recycled windows were distributed throughout the perimeter of the volume like doors to the exterior and are outlined by the concrete frame of the 30 cm wall.
In the common space the windows are distributed symmetrically and repeatedly in all directions to emphasize the flexibility, and yet rigorousnessof the space. They also let light in at all time, generating the adequate conditions to work and a permanent visual relation with the landscape.
Materials and textures were important to give the space a sense of history, human scale and atmosphere.
For this purpose the structural system (concrete frame and brick wall) is left in evidence from the interior and exterior, and as all the windows; the floor, beams and columns are also recycled materials.
