- Area: 374 m²
- Year: 2011
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Photographs:J. Cristóbal Valenzuela L
Text description provided by the architects. This house is located in a suburban condominium in the north area of Santiago. Each dwelling unit has a land plot of 0.5 hectares (1.2 acres), so that public space tends to be inert and reduced to wide streets designed exclusively for car transportation.
The lot in which the house is located is large and flat, with clean views in all directions, including the hills surrounding the area. Because it is preceded by a triangular-shaped esplanade facing the intersection of two streets, the site feels even larger than it is.
From this perspective, the proposal consists of inhabiting the extension through the construction of a boundary, so the house turns out to be the background of the esplanade and because there is no fencing it helps to blur the division between public and private space.
With this goal in mind, the project is based on a reinforced concrete wall that runs east–west across the wider section of the lot, on top of which a two-story white volume was built. This linear layout determines a two-faced house: a north façade with all rooms oriented towards the sun with views to the private garden, and a south façade towards the exterior with deployed walls, allowing observers to have a glimpse of what happens inside the house and vice versa.
