Casa Trama – Curicó, Chile
Title
Casa Trama – Curicó, Chile
Designed by
URZÚA SOLER Arquitectos
Image Credit
© Miguel Salinas
Website Source
Project Description
Project description provided by URZÚA SOLER Arquitectos - The project corresponds to a single-family home located in a dense forest in the Andes mountain range, Las Trancas, Chile. As a starting point, it was decided to configure the project as a horizontal programmatic bar, articulated in identical sections built with steel H columns and beams (modules of 3 x 3 x 6 meters), which adapt to the terrain's topography as they progress, extending their supports and suspending the living space of the house. In the center of the bar, and similarly modulated in steel triangles spaced every 3 meters, rests an inclined roof that facilitates climate mediation, while also protecting and providing air to the public spaces with a double-height void. On the other hand, it also contains the bedrooms on the second level as private spaces.
In this way, the house proposes a regular, symmetric, and orderly system that contrasts with an irregular and random environment in terms of topography and vegetation. A rational vessel that expresses its structure and its module through an incremental system, separating the artificial from the natural, and yet, seeks to merge them by intertwining the rhythms, shadows, opacity, and colors of the landscape with the constant, flat, and dark sequence of the project.
The continuous grid, protected by the wide gable roof, acts as a metallic, hard block with an interior of a friendly and warm character. On the outside, it is entirely wrapped in a folded metal skin resembling wooden slats, which only reveals its skeleton by making it evident and expressing it in its regular rhythm. It also allows interaction with the mountain climate, which experiences extreme cold temperatures, snow accumulation, and constant rainfall during the winter, alongside the heat and constant sun exposure in the summer. Moreover, the entire interior of the project (floors, walls, and ceilings) is covered with pine wood paneling, protecting it from direct exposure and creating an open, monomaterial, and continuous space at the heart of the home's social area.
In programmatic terms, the lower ends house the exterior spaces protected by services and terraces, with access through the center of the house, then separating, on each side of the nave, the public spaces (BBQs and living rooms) from the private ones (bedrooms). For the latter, the project incorporates two large skylights that cover the entire height of the roof, opening up light and views to the upper rooms, aligned with the center of each grid. On the first level, the bar becomes translucent in complete modules along its various programs, allowing the regulation of its brightness, framing the views of the landscape and the volcano, and containing its interior by regulating the open areas.
