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Architects: Diez + Muller Arquitectos
- Year: 2023
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Photographs:JAG Studio
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Manufacturers: RAMA estudio
Object and landscape: Through an intuitive process, a link is established between object and landscape, between man and nature.
In a place of imposing beauty and scale, the fragmented volume finds its ways of integrating into the territory apparently effortlessly, preserving its natural conditions. In a subtle modelling of the topography, the volume sinks and settles, achieving a sensation that it emerges from the earth. Or it rises and rotates seeking distant views. The proposal will always opt for dialogue and balance between the existing and projected landscape.
The route, the experience: Through a route that begins at the low level of the land and a lateral ascent, the object is identified in the distance. As we approach the house, the play of higher vertical elements is recognized and the house is revealed.
The experience is based on the act of moving and observing the vast surrounding landscape from different points. The passage from one space to another becomes a dynamic, natural and emotional experience.
Paradoxically, the vastness of the territory becomes the greatest difficulty in ensuring a pleasant experience of the place. The recovery of the human scale is of vital importance. Patios, viewpoints and thresholds contain the landscape, sheltering and preparing the user for their entry.
Taking a pause, leaving the everyday: Architecture is also about retreating into the interior of the house. Creating living spaces that are installed in the landscape. To move from one to another, just as outside, circulations are generated that motivate one to stop, attracted by the constant change of light and views.
Leaving the everyday, following the path of light and shadows trapped in roughness and imperfections. The house shows in the apparent defects, the hidden quality of the things that accompany life.
Structure and matter: A materiality and construction system is chosen that allows the desired plasticity and versatility, that can contain the soil and adapt to the existing topography. That it can carry large areas of earth on its slabs to spread vegetation over it and that it has the capacity to respond over time to an aggressive and unpredictable Andean equatorial climate (3200 meters above sea level).
Load-bearing walls support large raised beams that resolve spans of up to 12 m in length. We seek a relationship between the interior spatiality of the house and its continuity with the exterior landscape, achieving a light and fluid spatial threshold that contrasts with the built mass of concrete.
