Project: Casa Chica
Architects: AGB Arquitectos
Location: La Vega De La Pupuya, Chile
Area: 538
Year: 2022
Photographs by: Rodrigo Daza
Casa Chica by AGB Arquitectos
Nestled in the tranquil haven of La Vega de Pupuya, Chile, Casa Chica by AGB Arquitectos is a humble retreat resonating with the charm of its rural surroundings. Anchored in an open plan, this unpretentious abode hosts essentials – a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and an elevated mezzanine for the occasional guest. Situated amidst a stunning seascape and a pine-covered gorge, the house ingeniously integrates transparency and opacity in its design. Crafted with local materials and labor, the structure exudes a shed-like identity, embodying the simplicity of a local dweller’s haven. Its unassuming presence, embracing both the sea’s vastness and the forest’s serenity, makes Casa Chica a poetic response to its pristine surroundings.
Casa Chica is located in La Vega de Pupuya, Navidad, a town of farmers, fishermen, and seaweed gatherers, located on the coast 180 kilometers southwest of Santiago, a mostly rural area witnessing an explosive real estate boom due to its potential for water sports.
The commission consists of a refuge as austere as possible, in an open plan consisting of a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and as a result, in the two-pitched roof, a mezzanine to receive occasional visitors, just enough to settle in the place.
The plot was the main driver of how to solve the project, on one hand, we had an imposing sea view and on the other a pine forest in a context of ravines where this house is immersed, in response to this, we decided to locate the house in the lowest part of the plot, being very sheltered from any type of information outside the place, this also translates into the transparency and opacity of its facades. This isolated situation conditioned our operation in two ways. On the one hand, we had to work with scarce technology and local labor lacking specialization. On the other hand, we had to intervene in an idyllic landscape whose impeccable perfection would sooner or later be altered.
The small house does not pretend to be more than a refuge similar to that of a local resident present in the area for years, very austere with a lot of shed identity composed of a nave and a two-pitched roof with the exception that this one would be inhabited by a different character who contained that urban restlessness to contemplate the landscape, so on one of its faces it had to open completely to the sea, unlike the vernacular typology where the openings are exposed with great caution.
As for the materiality, the house is structured in traditional wood carpentry, its interior and exterior cladding are made of wood and corrugated pre-painted zinc lining on the roof.
