Casa OchoQuebradas

The Chilean coast near the town of Los Vilos, roughly 250 kilometers north of Santiago, is a rough and rugged landscape marked by deep ravines and dramatically cut stone inlets and cliffs. It’s this difficult—even brutal—environment that inspired 2016 Pritzker Prize laureate Alejandro Aravena’s Santiago, Chile–based firm Elemental to design a starkly simple three-volume composition as its contribution to the star-studded Ochoalcubo development, which features, among other housing, weekend retreats by 16 noted architects—eight from Japan, including Kengo Kuma, Hon. FAIA, and Sou Fujimoto, and eight from Chile, including Felipe Assadi, Guillermo Acuña, and Aravena.

Named Casa OchoQuebradas (Eight Ravines) after the site’s topography, the Elemental house is set 23 meters (about 75 feet) above the Pacific Ocean. The seaside climate is somewhat difficult, with temperatures averaging 59 F. “It’s a very windy coast, with cloudy mornings and very sunny afternoons,” Elemental partner Víctor Oddó explains.

The commission came with minimal program requirements: four bedrooms and four baths. Elemental designed a solution that can accommodate just a couple for a weekend or a larger group of guests for longer periods. The 289-square-meter (about 3,111-square-foot) house is crafted out of just three materials: reinforced concrete, wood, and glass.

A horizontal volume, measuring 10.90 meters (36 feet) by 15 meters (49 feet) comprises the main living level, which is set into the landscape and can be used as a complete home for two. A continuous space for kitchen, dining, and living areas, all under a 3.54-meter (11.5-foot) ceiling, is bisected by a circular fire pit—open to the sky through a second, monumental canted volume—that can be closed off with sliding glass doors. Oddó notes that the canted volume is not just a chimney: “It’s a room for fire—a piece of outdoors indoors,” he says. The master bedroom occupies an alcove next to the living room, where it enjoys floor-to-ceiling glass facing southwest toward the ocean. This portion of the house runs from the northeast to the southwest, facing the ocean, and the fact that the northeastern half is partially below grade directs all views out toward the water.

Above this lower, main living level, the primary tower volume measures 3.2 meters (10.5 feet) by 9.7 meters (32 feet) with a height of 9.74 meters; it is cantilevered roughly 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) off the top of the horizontal mass. And entry to the house is hardly obvious: In order to reach the front door on the southwest face of the tower, visitors must walk from grade onto the concrete roof of the horizontal lower volume and navigate a narrow exterior slot between the tower and the 6.52-meter-tall (21-foot-tall) canted concrete volume—the one that ventilates the fire from the main living space underfoot.

From the entrance, a spiral stair of precast concrete descends to the living spaces while a straight-run wood-and-steel stair rises to the additional bedrooms and bathrooms—one each on the ground, second, and third floors—and an open terrace atop the tower. The tower’s ocean-facing façade is clad in 4-inch-wide acetylated pine wood boards, which conceal floor-to-ceiling shutters that provide large openings for each of its interior spaces. Operable insulated glass doors lie just behind the shutters and provide natural ventilation. When closed, the shutters create a monolithic blank façade (even the front door can be concealed) echoing the concrete expanses of the other three sides of the tower.

The simplicity of the mechanical systems matches the almost rudimentary nature of the house, with central heating provided by a combination of a gas-fired boiler, hot-water-finned tube radiators, and, of course, the fire pit. In the summer months, cooling is produced entirely via natural cross ventilation.

The boundaries between the principal materials of vertical wood boards and board-formed concrete can sometimes seem blurred as the 4-inch-wide pine board’s dimensions match those used as formwork for the exposed concrete walls on the other three sides of the tower, and for the other two volumes. And the color—which is already pretty close—will get even closer. “Wood turns gray over time,” Oddó says. “We expect these pieces to age as a stone, acquiring some of the brutality of the place.” The concrete floors, with their polished finish, provide some modest contrast.

Casa OchoQuebradas aspires to both the simplicity and complexity of the natural world. Its balance—of roughness and refinement, of mass and transparency, of shelter and exposure—sets it apart in a harsh, but hauntingly beautiful landscape.

Project Credits
Project: Casa OchoQuebradas, Los Vilos, Chile
Client: Withheld
Design Architect: Elemental, Santiago, Chile . Alejandro Aravena, Victor Oddó, Suyin Chia (project team)
Collaborators: Alexander Frehse, José Esparza Chong Cuy, AIA, Carlos Portillo, Isaías Moreno, Clémence Pybaro
Structural Engineer: Luis Soler P. & Associates
Mechanical Engineer: Geocav
Size: 289 square meters (3,111 square feet)
Cost: Withheld