House on Hill / OPA

Architects: OPA / Felipe del Rio, Federico Campino
Location: Colina, Región Metropolitana, Chile
Structural Engineering: Leonora Morales
Construction: Jaime Martinez Jaca
Interior Area: 200 m2
Exterior Surface: 77 m2
Built Year: 2009
Landscaping: Jose Ignacio Romussi
Photo: Nico Saieh / Cristina Alemparte

This house is located in a lot of parcels in the vicinity of Hill, on one side of the Carretera San Martin de los Andes. The abundant vegetation and open space, dominated by hills and trees, support the rural character of the area, worn by urban expansion and real estate development has little sensitivity to the wild, reproducing patterns of housing and urban infrastructure, in a natural setting . This is also importing the image of the city, the countryside.

This provided us the first ideas for design, design a "house" instead of a town house in the countryside. Thus the idea of reinterpreting and representing traditional rustic buildings took on the force by inventing a formal concept for a home, to work in context and in relation to the natural environment.

During the review process constructive typologies of rural areas (residential and industrial), highlights the virtues of the shed space for machinery and agricultural warehouses, mainly for the simplicity of its structure, interior width and height, flexibility of use, modular construction and potential expansion program, all elements well valued by the client. The recognizable elements of this type of construction makes it common and familiar, and yet individual and defined within the landscape through the use of materials.

This infrastructure will be respectfully inserted in geography and is associated with large open spaces and culture, interior roads and malls that are perceived distance and high-rise green axes. The size, strength and clarity of its volumetric express architectural condition between the clumps of Hill Valley.

In contrast to these virtues, the problem of thermal and energy aspects of precincts with large volume of air, thinking of the household and the potential of these structures as a model for rural housing growth, inspired by their own features and landscapes, giving value and extending their building tradition from a contemporary and sustainable environment.

As a design strategy is decided to charge the structure of the house with more programmatic and operational variables, given that it is making the greatest efforts of the building, constituting the thematic area of the project. For this, a basic structural skeleton frames of reinforced concrete double-height, with independently according to their position and agenda. This results in a longitudinal development of the house where no frame is equal to another, breaking the symmetry and spatial monotony of industrial structures.

The interior space is arranged bringing together all the service functions and circulations in a two-tier technical corridor, facing west, which separates the bedrooms and public carriers by a wall of reinforced brick masonry tax in sight, double height . Both spaces are connected through openings in the wall. Circulations balconied second floor of the room, emphasizing its verticality and hierarchy as a center of the home. In the heads of the house were located terraces, facing south to the north for summer and winter sun.

The pillars of the frameworks were designed with a variable section that increases as they gain height, creating the condition for a perimeter enclosure thicker insulation on the second floor and roof, delivering increased thermal capacity. This helps to store the warm air mass in winter longer and use less energy to heat your home, by way of a field house with thick walls of adobe.

To cool the house were projected cross ventilation in both senses of the house and across the two levels, to promote circulation of fresh air and the passive extraction of hot air.

The environment of the home field advantage was treated to generate places around the house, and depending on the natural courtyards that form the sides and under an old mall, which enters and shoots at the site.