Casa los Algarrobos
The house is located in the Chicureo valley, a suburban area of Santiago, in an urbanization mostly composed by 5000 m2 lots, with no slope and characterized by the local vegetation, hawthorns and gramineas.
The assignment comes from a young family of six looking for a kind of space that is not achievable anymore in the center: a place to settle down and generate a new life, characterized by different kinds of activities, as indoor as outdoor, in the same place.
The project answers to these requirements generating a multi-step master plan for the entire 5000 m2 ground, to be developed in different stages with the house as a starting point, followed by a tennis court, a vegetable garden, a barbecue area, a playground and a big lawn, also used as a soccer field.
The design of the house, which occupies the full width of the site, is determined by two breaks on the façade, one looking to the front garden, and the other one to the private patio.
The Y-shaped layout welcomes the visitor with a sequence of brick planes, that guides the way to the interior, which opens to a multipurpose patio with a geometry characterized by floor materials changes and breaks that reinforce the house shaping.
The house is programmatically divided in three independent macro areas: one public, living-dining room, one private, bedrooms, and a service area. All three of them converge in the access hall, the most transparent point of the house, which connects visually the front and the back patio.
In the private area, an interior patio separates the main bedroom from the other ones, which are connected to each other by sliding doors. Above these, on the second floor, a living room is dedicated to the four daughters, with a big common desk and a TV area.
The use of traditional construction materials, brick and concrete, gives an atemporal personality to the house, which is composed by simple lines and shapes, avoiding styles and trends.
