Elton Léniz perches Casa BB on hillside overlooking Chilean lake
A black holiday home by Chilean architecture studio Elton Léniz is lifted off the ground by wooden stilts to help reduce the building's impact on the earth.
Casa BB rises up from a slender, wooded site along Lake Calafquén in southern Chile. Just beyond the lake is Villarrica, one of the country's most active volcanoes.
Elton Léniz designed the house on stilts to overlook a Chilean lake
The building serves as a vacation house for a couple with two children. Santiago-based Elton Léniz aimed to capitalise on the scenery while also providing a sense of privacy.
"The narrow proportion of the site suggested a small, vertical design that would maximise unobstructed views of the impressive geography while freeing up as much space as possible between neighbouring buildings," the team said.
A micro-perforated screen mitigates sun exposure
To reduce exposure to ground moisture and to minimise disturbance to the hillside, the team propped the house up on wooden supports.
"This compact house sits almost like a container on a wooden structure, with minimal intervention in the terrain and the slope," the team said.
Cuts and openings connect occupants to the outdoors
Facades are clad in Quadroline aluminium panels from Hunter Douglas – a low-maintenance material with simple, vertical lines.
The panels' black colour helps the home blend with the terrain.
The compact house resembles a container
On the north is a micro-perforated screen that mitigates sun exposure while preserving a visual connection with the landscape.
The home's entrance is on the south side, where a wooden walkway leads to the front door. The bottom level holds the kitchen, living room, dining area and a sheltered patio, along with a bedroom.
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The social spaces are designed to flow into each other. "Living room, dining room, kitchen and barbecue-terrace are continuously articulated to allow simultaneous activities," the team said.
The main bedrooms are found on the upper level.
The house is entered via a wooden walkway
Rooms feature contemporary decor and ample use of earthy materials, including pine wood. Cuts and openings in the building enable occupants to feel connected to the outdoor setting.
"This allows one to silently confront geography and to discover new relations with the landscape from within the space," the team said.
Facades are clad in black Quadroline aluminium panels
Led by Mirene Elton and Mauricio Léniz, the firm Elton Léniz has designed a number of residential projects, including Casa El Pangue – a hillside house in Chile that offers panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean.
The photography is byCristobal Palma.
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Casa S is an amoeba-shaped home on the coast of Chile
A concrete podium topped with a sculptural, glazed volume forms Casa S, a cliffside Chilean house by architecture firms Gubbins Polidura Arquitectos and Más Arquitectos.
The project is located in Punta Pite, a community that sits between the beach towns of Zapallar and Papudo on the Chilean coast. As indicated by its name – punta is Spanish for tip – the site juts out into the sea.
Casa S sits on a clifftop that juts out to sea
Santiago firms Gubbins Polidura Arquitectos and Más Arquitectos were tasked with designing a second home for a couple with three children.
Their design was heavily influenced by the client’s unique property, which is almost 100 metres long and has a steep, rocky drop of 20 metres.
The structure is shaped like an amoeba
"One of the main objectives of the project was to create a horizontal plane – a large podium that allows for habitation and highlights the strength of the landscape, the view of the sea and the sunset," the team said.
The two-level Casa S consists of a V-shaped, concrete podium topped with a glazed, amoeba-shaped volume.
The house is embedded into the site
The podium is embedded in the site, making it barely visible from certain vantage points.
"This reduces the image of a large house in the landscape," the team said. "When you are in the pavilion on the upper floor, the rest of the house disappears."
Casa S features views of the surrounding coastline
Within the 420-square-metre dwelling, there is a clear division between public and private areas.
"The idea of the proposal was to separate the public and private programs into two pieces arranged one on top of the other, relating both levels to the landscape," the team said.
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Upstairs one finds the kitchen, dining area and living room. Each occupies a circular room with a sunken central portion.
Floor-to-ceiling glass enables the rooms to feel integrated with the natural terrain. Granite flooring continues outdoors, further helping the interior merge with the landscape.
A spiral staircase is located at the heart of the ground level
At the heart of the ground level is a spiral staircase, which leads down to the sleeping area. One side holds a main suite, while the other encompasses three bedrooms.
Throughout the home, the team used a restrained palette of materials, including stone, wood and board-formed concrete. Stacked plywood boards form the stairs and dining furniture.
Chocolate-toned wood is found throughout the home
Given Chile’s high amount of seismic activity, the architects were mindful of earthquakes while designing the building. The upper portion consists of a concrete slab that rests on 21 steel columns.
"The height of the columns is the minimum, 230 centimetres, thus avoiding the possible deformation of the structure in the face of dynamic stress," the team said.
"This height enhances the horizontality of the enclosures, highlighting the views always towards the horizon."
The podium is made of concrete
Other coastal dwellings in Chile include a pair of minimalist, timber-clad cabins by Croxatto and Opazo Architects, and a cliffside retreat by the late Chilean architect Cristián Boza that features a winding yellow wall and circular swimming pool.
The photography is byCristobal Palma.
Project credits:
Architecture firms: Gubbins Polidura Arquitectos and Más Arquitectos
Architects: Antonio Polidura and Alex Brahm
Landscape: Juan Grimm
Architecture collaborator: Hernan Fournies
Project calculations: Alberto Maccioni
Construction: Daniel Alemparte
Lighting: Greene During Iluminacion and Luxia Lighting
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Glue-laminated timber structure forms San Crescente housing block in Santiago
Izquierdo Lehmann Arquitectos and Francisco Saul have completed a block of five row houses in Santiago, which are grouped under a large roof to give the impression of a single residence.
The San Crescente housing ensemble is named after its street in the Las Condes neighbourhood of the Chilean capital.
The San Crescente project comprises five conjoined houses
According to the architects, the land was purchased by a group of friends that wanted to develop a housing format different than the typical blocks available in Chile.
The long building is made of glue-laminated timber, a wood technology that makes long and sturdy members by glueing and compressing smaller wood elements.
The houses all open up onto a central outdoor area
This material forms the structure of each of the five houses that make up San Crescente, which are separated by concrete demising walls.
The Chilean pine structure forms a continuous pattern across the long facade of the building, lending the impression of a single volume rather than five separate units.
Glue-laminated timber was used to construct the building
"The repetition of this module qualifies the facades with a constant rhythm that masks the differences of rooms and ownership within a unitary volume," said the architects.
"Like a large house for five families that opens onto the street as if they were one."
Concrete walls divide each of the residences
Within each unit, the architects did not build any walls on the ground floor. Instead, the communal areas are delineated by shelving, furniture, and millwork.
These form a "diffuse border" between uses, with the added benefit of opening up sight lines from the front of the homes all the way to the garden.
Communal areas are delineated by shelving, furniture, and millwork
"The private courtyards and the street are visually connected across this framing structure," the architects explained.
On the upper level on each residence, a compact layout accommodates two smaller bedrooms facing the street, with a primary bedroom overlooking the garden. The main suite in each of the houses is slightly narrower than the full width of the property.
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This arrangement enables the addition of a window to the centrally located bathrooms, and allowed Izquierdo Lehmann Arquitectos and Saul to include skylights in the living rooms below.
"These semi-detached houses, despite their limited perimeter to the outside, receive natural light from all four sides, like an isolated house," the architects explained.
The wooden structure is expressed across the building's exterior
The same pine wood as the structure was used for many of the building's interior finishes and furniture.
The entire building sits over a shared basement, providing parking and storage that is accessible from directly within the units.
The project is located in the Las Condes neighbourhood of Santiago, Chile
Glue-laminated timber is part of a larger trend in the construction industry towards developing wood products that lend themselves to longer structural spans.
Other projects using similar technology include a dining hall in a west London school that is topped by a soaring wooden structure, and a timber building in Sweden with claims to be "carbon-negative" over its full life-cycle.
The photography is byCristobal Palma.
Project credits:
Architect: Cristián Izquierdo L.
Collaborator: Francisco Saul
Structural engineering: Luis Soler P y Asociados
Builder: Tecton
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Historic Palacio Pereira in Santiago turned into Chile's Ministry of Culture
Architects Cecilia Puga, Paula Velasco and Alberto Moletto have restored Santiago's Palacio Pereira, an abandoned 19th-century neoclassical mansion, turning it into offices where Chile's new constitution will be written.
The building, which was designed in the mid 1800s by French architect Lucien Hénault is now the headquarters for the country's Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage.
The mansion was built in the neoclassical style by French architect Lucien Hénault
Cecilia Puga and Paula Velasco, who collaborate in a partnership, worked with Moletto Arquitectos founder Alberto Moletto on the project.
The trio of Santiago-based architects, led by Puga, won the competition to renovate the building in 2012.
The building is now offices for Chile's government
Instead of restoring the building to an exact copy of its original state, the architects added contemporary additions to places where the historic building had crumbled away .
"The project's material strategy sought to draw attention to the complexity of inhabiting such a structure," said the architects.
"Prioritizing neither the new intervention nor the character of the elegant wreckage of the Palacio Pereira."
A bronze helical staircase connects floors where the original mezzanine level collapsed
A complex grid of concrete pillars restores the shape of the original courtyard where the building had been partially demolished.
The courtyard originally separated the family rooms from the services areas when the building was a grand house. Now levels of offices with floor-to-ceiling glazing look out through the concrete pillars onto the courtyard.
Contemporary additions have restored the form of the original courtyard
"Given the collapse of original mezzanines in many areas of the building, such as the ones destinated to be a public cafeteria and book store, we let the fabric of the building exposed and in full height without rebuilding ceilings or covering surfaces," added the architects.
In these areas, the 15-metre-high ceilings have been accentuated by a pair of helical staircases clad in bronze.
Throughout its lifetime the building suffered damage in earthquakes and after the 1973 coup d'état.
When it was designated a national monument in 1981 it was already in a state of disrepair that worsened over decades of abandonment
Pillars replace walls that had crumbled or been demolished
Palacio Pereira was bought by the government in 2011 and it launched a competition to restore and convert the mansion into offices for the culture ministry.
The offices will be one of the venues for Chile's Constitutional Convention, where a new constitution will be written for the country following protests and riots that began in October 2019.
Chile's new convention will be written in the Palacio Pereira
Local photographer Cristobal Palma documented the city's boarded-up streets during this period of unrest in a photo essay for Dezeen.
More historic buildings given a new lease of life in the city include a 1930s mansion that's now a fintech startup's offices and an abandoned public education building that's been turned into a family health centre.
Photography is by Cristobal Palma.
Project credits:
Team leader: Cecilia Puga
Architects : Cecilia Puga, Paula Velasco, Alberto Moletto
Restauration consultants : Alan Chandler, Fernando Pérez, Luis Cercós
Structural engineer: Pedro Bartolomé, Cristian Sandoval
Collaborating architects : Sebastián Paredes, Osvaldo Larrain, Emile Straub, Danilo Lazcano
Video and images : Gabriela Villalobos, Rebecca Emmons
Physical models : Alejandro Luer, Francisca Navarro
Signage project: Gonzalo Puga, Claudio Cornejo
Interior design: Alexandra Edwards, Carolina Delpiano
Light project : Neftali Garrido, Alejandra Jobet, Silk-screened Ceilings, Pascal Chautard
Photographic register: Felipe Fontecilla
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#all #architecture #cultural #restorations #cristobalpalma #chile #santiago #adaptivereuse #governmentbuildings #offices
Cristobal Palma documents streets of Santiago during protests
Architecture photographer Cristobal Palma captures an atmosphere of "paranoia" with shots of the boarded-up streets in Santiago's wealthy areas during the recent protests.
Palma's photographs frame shops and banks in the capital of Chile with their lower levels covered by metal hoardings last year.
Cristobal Palma photographed boarded-up streets
According to Palma these buildings were never truly at risk, but he was interested in the symbolism of how parts of the city away from the main protest areas looked during the protracted period of unrest from the end of 2019 through most of 2020.
"The architecture of some of the more busy areas of the city started to change, to interact with what was going on," he told Dezeen.
"Many facades started to get clumsily boarded up in some more affluent parts of town, which the riots actually never reached," he added.
Windows and doors were hastily boarded up
Most of the boarded-up buildings that Palma photographed were built in the 1990s and 2000s, after Chile's "miracle years" where the country's economy boomed.
"Though at first this was meant to be a temporary condition, it started to feel more permanent, and became a reflection of how most of our architecture is not really prepared to interact with politics at this scale and intensity," said the photographer.
"This generic architecture became a kind of unintended message of paranoia and ineptitude mirroring how the political class was also reacting."
The temporary hoardings became semi-permenant
His photo series aims to underline that much of the civil unrest was non-violent as people took to the streets to protest peacefully against raises to the Santiago Metro's fares, government corruption, the cost of living and widespread inequality that has been building for decades.
"Here in Santiago, we had massive peaceful demonstrations all over the city, spontaneous street carnivals," the photographer told Dezeen.
Palma captured an alternative view of the protests
The photographer hopes that the shots of untouched buildings offer an alternative view of events that were typically characterised in the global media by shots of violent clashes between citizens and the police and military.
"There were some riots and looting in the periphery, as well as some violent demonstrations in parts of the city centre that became somehow ritualistic," said Palma,
"Every Friday a bunch of people would gather in what is considered a kind of centre-point dividing Santiago symbolically in two, between the poor part and the rich one, to demonstrate," he added.
"Usually these demonstrations would end up being a confrontation between the people and the police in a kind of choreography of violence."
The protests lasted for over a year
The protests lasted from October 2019 to a referendum in November 2020, but it was the these violent clashes that came to define the period of civil unrest in the eyes of the world.
"In situations such as the one we had in Santiago, a kind of violence pornography does overtake most of the way events are communicated," said Palma.
"Some of this imagery is intended to inform, some to celebrate, but here at least, it was mostly to get people scared of what was happening and to overshadow the actual political and social events that were taking place," he told Dezeen.
"The whole event is much more complex than just some people throwing petrol bombs at the police," said Palma. "It’s full of contradictions and subtleties."
The series is the antithesis of most coverage of the events of 2020
Palma said he didn't face many obstructions while taking the shots for his series apart from the odd security guard, but he remained wary.
"In Chile, the people you really have to fear are the police, who have become totally unhinged since the start of the social outbreak," he said. "But as I tended to do this work away from the demonstrations, usually on quiet days, I never really felt unsafe."
Palma said he didn't feel too threatened during his project
Palma was born in the UK but grew up in Santiago from the age of three. He lived in London for over a decade in the 1990s before returning to Chile 12 years ago. He usually photographs private architecture projects around Chile and his shots are often featured on Dezeen.
"'Architecture photography' can be a problematic term," he said. "Although I make my living mostly doing 'architecture photography', I have tried to stay active photographing the built environment for non-celebratory reasons, as a kind of balancing act."
Santiago has just gone into lockdown because of coronavirus
Although the protests are over, tensions are still simmering in Santiago as the city enters a full lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"The government just fenced off the square where people used to gather every Friday to demonstrate with a metal structure," Palma said.
"Although the vaccination program that started recently has so far been a success, throughout last year the lockdowns and sanitary problems only served to exacerbate all the structural shortcomings of a city built according to the neoliberal paradigm over the last 40 years."
Photography is by Cristobal Palma.
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