House with a Patio / Guillermo Hevia García + Catalina Poblete

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https://www.archdaily.com/1009869/house-with-a-patio-guillermo-hevia-garcia-plus-catalina-poblete
© Nicolás SaiehProject axo© Nicolás Saieh

Text description provided by the architects. During the multiple trips we have made to Lake Ranco in recent years, we have always been intrigued by a mid-20th-century shed located at the northern entrance of the town of Futrono, which has a structural system based on pillars, struts, and beams.

Climate is a fundamental factor for design, and the courtyard is not only an element that builds new relationships with the context but, above all, a climate device that allows transforming the climate into the center of the project. It allows sunlight to penetrate all spaces, considering that the project is located 1,000 km south of Santiago in an oceanic temperate climate where around 1,800 mm of rainfall occurs annually. This makes direct sunlight highly desired both in winter and summer.

The courtyard transforms the climate into the central concept of the house. The program is organized around a single circulation around this courtyard, allowing for continuous movement around a succession of public and private spaces.

The interior spaces are configured based on the repetition of a single structural section and an arbitrary system of measurements, where the material acts as the unifying element. Repetition allows for programmatic and spatial variation, configuring different types of spaces based on small operations and specific needs.

The courtyard allows for double orientations that ensure that one side is always exposed to the sun and can be ventilated crosswise. The four or eight sides of the house are a statement against the common idea of “facing towards the view” and understanding that the dimension of the place is multi-scale and multidirectional, in other words, the lake is as important as the mountains, the arrayan forests, or the shrubs, herbs, and nalcas that grow on the ground.

The courtyard also allows native species and animals living on the site to move as if the house did not exist, reducing supports to a series of points and isolating the interior from the damp ground.

The project establishes a direct dialogue with the Klenner Shed, with its constructive and structural aspects, but above all with its design protocols and strategies. This structural decision allowed the house to be built in less than a year and enabled work to be carried out every day during the rainy season, especially in the installations, interiors, and finishes.

The exoskeleton structures both the house and the program, separating it from the ground. It is simultaneously a constructive, climatic, and economic strategy by reducing future maintenance costs associated with wood construction.