The commission starts with the request to build a previously designed house that included a single-family house attached to two apartments for rent. As a young office that faced their first project, we decided to propose a sketch instead of building the proposed generic housing that didn’t seem to be part of the site where it was going to be placed. This new proposal raised the idea of rehabilitating the surrounding house for rent instead of building new apartments as part of the house. Furthermore, we reasserted the essence of this family where all the daily activities were carried out in an abundant space with divisions that didn’t allow the closure of each area to separate the activities. Moreover, we emphasized the recovery of the garden that had been covered with concrete used as a huge parking lot for one car.
We uncovered the ground to locate a garden boundary between the existing house and the new proposal. The house is located in such a way that it separates an intimate and a common garden, which gives way to the disposition of the program classified as private and social, relating to each garden respectively. The social zone faces the common green space sharing daily activities as: cooking, eating, watching movies or working. None of these activities would lose the possibility of immediate interaction between users. While the private area is separated by a group of services and a corridor that connects with the bedrooms related to the privacy of the intimate garden.
The volume is worked from the relations between the interior and the exterior, the plant envelope borders the brick walls and glazed openings floor to ceiling that seek to cause the escape of the look towards the gardens, as if the user were in a permanent outdoors despite doing their daily activities.
The masonry fulfills different functions within the project, the double wall that encloses the kitchen in the social area fulfills a structural role receiving the structure of steel beams and supporting both the roof of greater slope and an inclined glass plane that covers the entrance of the house as a preamble for entering the space, Both separated by a line of glass that allows the entrance of light at a different height than in the rest of the project,
The masonry along the corridor was designed in the form of an exhibition gallery which shows a family collection of cuscungo (Kichwa for owls) shaped pieces of different sizes, colors, ages and nationalities. This collection was previously contained in furniture that did not allow to understand it as something precious. Therefore, we decided to make it part of the route of the house to reflect its importance to all users and visitors.
The floor plan changes according to the area, between the social and private area there is a change of level and material, as a transition of uses and temperature the polished cement floor becomes a wooden eucalyptus board causing the sensation of warmth and intimacy, innocent decisions that give the user a pleasant living.
