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Architects: OMCM arquitectos
- Area: 696 m²
- Year: 2022
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Photographs:Leonardo Méndez
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Manufacturers: Deca, Eliane, FV, Fumagali, Kaukol
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Lead Architects: Matias Ortiz y Maria Paz Chamorro
Text description provided by the architects. Each commission we receive is a good opportunity for the studio to reflect on and express the ideas that are formed in relation to a project, as well as its links with the natural and built environment, which we hope is always harmonious and sustainable.
Located in a young neighborhood in the city of Altos, the assignment consisted of designing a summer house that would house family and friends, gathered in social and recreational spaces that, while being related to the outside world, could maintain a certain degree of privacy.
The proposal sought to settle the building lightly on the plot, taking advantage of the unevenness to let the public space and the surrounding vegetation flow together. Indeed, three native trees of the region, called albizia hassleri known in Paraguay as Yvyraju, were in the center of it, as hosts and allies from the very beginning. A raised volume of 12x24 meters was proposed, supported on six pillars, with a central subtraction in the form of a cloister, which articulates and separates the social space from the intimate, providing lighting and natural ventilation to the spaces.
The services areas and a guest block are situated on the ground floor. A garden terrace around the trees that provides panoramic views of the neighborhood and its landscapes acts as a fifth facade. After solving its functional aspects, we consider a house to be able to go much further, acting as a laboratory of ideas, constructive systems, interdisciplinary work, a small epicenter of sustainability, a sample of how to coexist with nature and of how to build a city, how to contribute to the collective language and how to improve design tools and prop up or renew paradigms.
With the idea of maintaining austere and honest materiality, we explored the possibility of making our own blocks with residual stone from local quarries. These were manufactured at the site, at a cost that is equally competitive as any other material on the market, with the difference of reincorporating "waste" into the circular economy. In this way, we are reflecting on the importance of optimizing our resources toward a more sustainable future and emphasizing the significance of labor for the humanization of processes.
With this, we obtained exciting benefits such as; considerably thin walls (5cm) with raw material, thermal inertia through air chambers, warmth in the texture and tonality of the enclosures, and an aesthetic that highlights the imperfect as a valid construction model. On the other hand, we incorporated a clean energy injection system through photovoltaic panels connected to the electrical network, as well as the collection of rainwater for its later use in irrigation.
Yvyraju is for us a very pleasing example of how to combine and materialize various aspects that make up our commitment to discipline and the environment, in accordance with the expectations of the client, prompting us to always maintain a young spirit with a focus on research, practice and careful construction.
