House in Zapallar

The commission consisted of the remodelling and expansion of the main house and a new guest house on a plot with terraces and existing gardens that were subtly intervened with to gradually articulate the buildings with new courtyards and terraces that would allow the place to be occupied in its entirety, giving meaning to each space in an upward journey.

Three main sectors were consolidated on the ground:
The first platform with the main house whose walls were partially maintained and in some cases only following the trace of the perimeter foundation.

The interior distribution was completely modified to achieve a more fluid circulation and better communication between rooms, with orientations that allow greater luminosity and new relations to the exterior. The structure was reinforced and a staircase was incorporated in the remodeled hall, more spacious and illuminated, to seek views of the sea from a new second floor and its terraces. This volume has a more hybrid formal reading than the rest since the original roof was kept in the one-story sector, only shortening the eaves to achieve a cleaner prism.

In the second intermediate platform, the existing volume was completely remodelled, both internally and externally, to achieve a simpler and more linear expression with a flat roof and thus formally tie it to the volume of the main house. The hill was lowered to build a rear terrace and obtain better interior lighting and a more private expansion to the exterior.

After the tour of the landscaped hill, the third platform is reached. With the existing pool and a new shade with a language consistent with the rest of the remodelling, leading to the fourth platform. Here a new volume was projected, attached to the hill that is inflected both in the floorplan as well as in the section to generate the access and the finish of the route that then diversifies in a final route towards the upper rear platform that returns the gaze to the sea rising to the deck/terrace. It corresponds to two separate programs with separate accesses at each level, but a unitary reading was expressly sought for with this final volume.

The existing and new volumes were homogenized with one another using the same formal language and materiality and a color palette that harmonizes with the garden already structured previously.

The different volumes, both the remodelled and the entirely new ones, were structured with a system of beams and pillars in glued laminated wood, structural partitions in plywood and light slabs of plywood and laminated timber beams.

Special concern was taken to improve the thermal insulation of the envelope with good thermal insulators in the partitions and glazing and windows with thermopanels and PVC frames.

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