RE House | Valle Escondido | Santiago | Gonzalo Mardones Arquitectos

RE House

Artevia Lafarge 2006 Award.

The place where this house is located has its own name: Valle Escondido (Hidden Valley) and this refers to its physiognomy and recognized natural elements, which make it special and unique within the Andean foothills of Santiago.
To insert a building in this landscape, where nature and its powerful topography contribute the main features, implied a real challenge.
The solution adopted, on various levels, adapts to the topography establishing the most intense connection and relationship with the environment, blocking itself off from the neighboring plots with a mural proposal with openings directed towards the best views. The façade onto the street is mainly a wall and offers protection from the sun to the West, whilst the internal façade, open onto the garden, the swimming pool and the golf course, is a composition of large concrete frames and transparent glass windows, open to the morning sun, to the light and to a garden which adds privacy.
The roof was developed like an additional floor, in the manner of an expansion area, a terrace with pool and spa, becoming simultaneously a look-out.
The materiality, the bare concrete of all the walls, beams, sills and porches, acts as a unifying element.
The section recognizes the different activities typical of the home, and the central hall, with its double height, is the place which links the different levels and rooms with the aim of framing that landscape which one felt should not be touched. Due to al this, an essential architecture was proposed, very linked to the landscape and the place, in which the formal solution is developed in relation to the spaces animated by light........more