Project: Morla House
Architects: Stanaćev Granados
Location: Matanzas, Chile
Area: 1,291 sf
Year: 2022
Photographs by: Pablo Casals Aguirre, Manu Granados
The Morla House, located in Matanzas, Chile, is a rental house designed to optimize space and accommodate a family with an area of 120 m2. The volume of the house is characterized by its relationship with the exterior, taking into account the unique conditions of the site, such as the view over the Pacific Ocean, prevailing winds, and sun exposure. The house features a demediated volume with an abstract, closed southwest side and extroverted north and east facades. It is constructed mainly with black-stained pine wood, creating an intriguing contrast between the interior and exterior. The fluid interior space is covered in the same black wood, creating a balance of light and shadow. The design emphasizes flexibility and multifunctionality, making the most of the available space with elements like the walkway entrance and dual-use areas.
La Casa Morla is the result of a project located in Matanzas (Chile), a small coastal town famous for its conditions for water sports. As it is a rental house, we had to optimize the surfaces to the maximum and think of it from an architectural language that would allow us to work with a tight budget knowing that it would be executed with non-specialized local labor.
The project had to compactly but flexibly solve a program of single-family housing for rent with an area of 120 m2 with living space, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, pantry, cellar, and terrace.
The approach was to generate a volume based on its relationship with the exterior, determined by the particular conditions of the place where it is installed: the view over the Pacific Ocean to the north, the strong prevailing south wind, the intense west sun, and the coveted eastern sun.
Demediated volume: the house is a body of antagonistic faces with an abstract, closed, and mysterious southwest side that becomes figurative and extroverted on its north and east facades. To achieve this, a single material is used – black-stained pine wood – worked in a continuous and boarded way on one side and leaving the laminated wood structure visible on the other.
Liquid space: as in the story of Garcia Marquez, to dilute the dichotomy inside, generating a kind of fluid state, the interior of the house is covered with the same black wood, a fact that seeks to emphasize the exterior while balancing the intensity of light, reflections, and shadows, generating here also a certain contrast between the luminosity of the main spaces and the penumbra of those transitional spaces that function as a diaphragm. The black interior skin, the hidden skylight, the open staircase, the sliding door of the living room, and the white horizontal planes of the ceilings make this play of nuances possible.
Promenade: to accentuate the idea of continuous and fluid space, another series of gestures are proposed, such as access through a walkway to how access a boat is, which allows us to raise the main level of the house with views over the sea. Upon entering, the main space is read at a glance, where the open interior staircase is immediately presented, leaving the lower garden in a complete visual. The terrace extends the interior space of the living room and bedroom, promoting circulation and use from the outside.
Dual uses: with the idea of flexibility in the way the house is used and maximizing its surface, a series of multifunctional elements are proposed: the kitchen is also the stair landing, the pantry is located in the circulation towards the bathroom and the master bedroom, the circulation on the lower level serves as a gifted multipurpose space, while the access walkway is also enjoyed as an alternative terrace.
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