El Gauchal
This project is situated a few meters from the coast, facing the bay of Navidad in the central-southern zone of Chile. In the surroundings, a forest, typical of the transversal valleys, converges with the previously industrial coastline,
now being redeveloped as a holiday destination. The brief responds to the needs of four different families, 14 people in total, that decided to build a second home
together. Therefore, multiple and divergent preferences of the different owners are congregated in one single volume, limited to an area of 111m2.
Contrary to the typical construction typology of a coastal zone, the volume is erected vertically over the landscape, in an aim to reach privileged views on the upper-level terrace, avoiding the obstructions of nearby houses. Standing in this way, the volume’s liberation from the ground allows for the displacement of the typological distribution of a beach house, generating new relationships and programmatic
associations on the vertical axis. This provokes a change in the spatial composition of the rooms, affecting their perception: spaces that are extremely reduced serve
others that are quite large, conforming a small total surface whose visual weight is magnified. This is achieved by the reduced width in contrast to an exacerbated height, and by the scale and location of the windows on the façade, that
contribute to this deliberately undefinable scale.
In the interior, a central void roams the building in its entirety, containing the circulation areas while enlarging the special perception of common areas. There are four private areas, one for each family, that are distributed on each floor at both extremes of the house, ensuring that all spaces are equally close to the centre. The sizes of the rooms are also identical, avoiding any type of exclusivity between families.
On the exterior, the massing is sculpted using a single operation for both the main façade and the roof: both are minimally folded according to the same aesthetic criteria, echoing the roof’s slopes on the wall facing the road. In this way, the typically clear division between these two elements is blurred. This cross between perpendicular and oblique axes produces the synergy that, like a language, compose each element of the project; its position within the limits of the site, the exterior pavements that fill this space and the windows that pierce the facades. Both interior and exterior are covered in raw wood, with finishes that allude both to the condition to which they respond, as to its counterpart: the first is an inert and atemporal grey that tends to eliminate the newly built status of the house, the second is a pristine white that is exposed to the extreme conditions of the coast, like a cuirass or plumage that shines while also protecting.
Architect: Iván Bravo
Collaborator: Martín Rojas & Gino León
Location: Navidad, Chile
Built area: 111 m2
Site area: 340 m2
Photography: Bruno Giliberto
Structure: Pedro Bartolomé
General contractor: William Farías
Text: Martín Rojas
