Architect: Jose Miguel Ibañez Pizarro
Location: Avenida Francisco Bilbao, Las Condes, Chile
Structural Engineering: Yuri Torres Aquevedo
Reform (2008): José Miguel Ibáñez Pizarro
Original House (1965): Unknown
Construction: Carlos Montoya EIRL
Construction System: Confined masonry in the first level. Second level tabs, brackets, and outgoing external walls clad Volcometal, tuned and painted. Alero black steel main channel. Floor coverings and stone slate eaves. Marble floors, porcelanatos and native woods. Blindex glass windows Termopaneles 9mm
Project Year: 2006
Year built: 2007-2008
Surface area: 400 m2
Surface: 204 m2 (70 m2 + 170 m2 existing extension)
Photo: José Francisco Morros / Maria Pia Perez

In developing the commissioning remembered my hometown, a town called Concepcion in the south of the country, and like her are the eaves, awnings flanking blocks offering complete protection from rain that is heavy in winter. Then I remembered the north where these elements outgoing lavish shade to the intensity of the sun and in turn are presented in the center of the country in the manner of galleries open to a courtyard in the more traditional buildings. So from the beginning I stated that the wing should be as a show of power, and indeed differentiating property of the collective memory of our code Architectural, paying utility and function. This tensionaría the front eaves, dramatic space to generate a contrast in tone and form the basis of the proposed volume, so the house would acquire one of the requirements of the client overemphasized, "character".

To comply with what was intended to shelter, it had to resist the trends of architecture with novel blind walls facing the street, "says fashion is proving stressful and scenic structures, generating spaces of the original plastic" , OK, maybe, it would be logical to assume that it protects privacy by opening windows and walls permeable to the courtyard where the privacy and not opening a single window facing the street. You may be right for some colleagues, but this was not the case, did not apply to the site from my point of view. In the rhetoric these homes closed to the street and open onto the courtyard are a style, a fad, a way, because there are many forms, but in practice if all homes built under that provision the transit for pedestrians would be walking these streets in no man's land, most likely on the lookout for offenders, only more down, then where is the community's contribution of a home?, a house can also contribute and make city as not only contributing buildings. For that reason and do not share that tendency as I opened the large windows in housing within the framework of the modulation of the original house frames. This will illuminate the vertical movement of the housing and subsequently through a glass wall inside empavonado illuminate the study and dining room, creating a special effect at night, giving rise to radiation of internal light to the pedestrian in areas as dark as it is facing Avenue facade, as the night lighting is not on both sidewalks but in the central floes to focus every few meters, which makes it eminently dark as a point of light is more than functional, useful and shelter. In the long run was so much so that the whereabouts of the public transport system was installed almost at the feet of the house ... .. literally a contribution to public space, taking advantage of the presence of housing to shelter overnight service users .

At night, thanks to artificial lighting, housing became a beacon city, given its location on the fringe between Las Condes and La Reina, Santiago, Chile. Today is a reference point for those traveling along Avenida Francisco Bilbao and approach the roundabout Thomas More, where change occurs commune.

The plant capricious in their distribution is a subject that is awarding the way of living of its owner. The lack of hall is the product of the ordinance and dense as required by the client program where housing was the ceiling in its percentage of construtivilidad. In a way, the reform of the rule, offered a multitude of problems that were solved to provide housing for a personal stamp and be 100% certain desires in function and style that the owners demanded that the time of the request.

With a dense architectural program, petty in its given location to narrow and foreshortened cut one of its boundaries, shows that housing can be embedded in the dense city and still offer relaxing courtyards and lofty character, as so openly stand up to a highly traveled artery and being an image in a gesture of urban contribution without having great natural reference to which to refer in the design, or land of generous proportions that allow freedom in the design proposals for to the rule governing the construction.