Project: ZGZ
Architects: iHouse estudio
Location: Blancarena, Colonia, Uruguay
Area: 1,162 sf
Year: 2020
Photographs by: Aldo Lanzi
ZGZ by iHouse estudio
Housing for temporary residence, conceived as a refuge for rest when the owner is visiting the country.
The commission was to generate a rest home, cozy as are the small typical wooden cabins of the hemisphere where it resides, but in a contemporary enclave that can also withstand the vertiginousness of modern life and contemplate all the comforts of it, as well as a rational use of resources trying to minimize the environmental impact.
The location of the project is in an area of countryside characteristic of the territory, surrounded by native forest but also very close to the small urbanization of Blancarena. Located between these diffuse suburban and rugged limits is that this house is developed.
On-site construction, in places with such a strong natural and rugged connotation brings with it a myriad of economic and logistical challenges that are not typical of an efficient contemporary solution, as well as being highly hostile to the environment. That is why the execution of all the work was carried out in the iHouse production plant, with a controlled work process in an environment isolated from climatic factors, with all the necessary equipment to work and carry out the tasks in the most optimal way possible in the best conditions, with the proximity of suppliers and with a permanent quality control in the work by the technicians, since the architecture studio is located within the production plant. All these factors make the construction process a much more efficient task, which is translated into the finished work.
Two modules were built that, joined by their longest side, make up the house, in the first one are all the wet services, bathrooms and kitchen, while the other houses the bedrooms and common spaces such as the living and dining room. Which were then transported to the site where their final installation was made.
The house is positioned as a pure volumetry that does not seek to blend in with the surrounding nature or compete with it, but stands out as an external and artificial element that coexists in harmony with a space alien to its language.
Its typology is organized programmatically in two clearly marked axes, in a sense it locates the private areas on the sides of the house and the spaces related to the environment, thus making the circulatory space almost zero, making the most of the meters built. On the other axis are located the service packages that nourish these named spaces, on each side there is a bathroom and in the center the open kitchen that is projected to the rest of the social area of the house. The fully glazed main facade with a large gallery allows the total opening of each of the areas of the house, thus virtually expanding its area towards nature.
-Project description and images provided by iHouse estudio
Drawings
