Guna House Located Between a Steeply Sloping Hillside and a Wood of Eucalyptus Trees by Pezo von Ellrichshausen

Architects: Pezo von Ellrichshausen
Location: Concepción, Biobío, Chile
Year: 2014
Area: 4,413 sqft / 410 sqm
Photo courtesy: Pezo von Ellrichshausen
Description:

Fixed in the middle of a steeply inclining slope and a wood of eucalyptus trees, the thin plot of area constrains one to cross the patio nursery to arrive, plummeting, at the little inlet of a tidal pond. Disregarding the scene, a solid crystal of solid endeavors to explain the geology’s disagreements with a square top floor measuring 20m (65ft) on every side adjusted on top of a reduced base floor measuring 8.5m (28ft) on every side.

The upper floor contains a focal porch with the same size as the base floor, in this way all the suspended rooms are presented to the outside by the four sides of their segment. This upper floor, a narrow minded piano nobile that makes up for the bother of the askew set regular territory incline, depends on a network of four modules for every side. The center rooms on every side face the focal yard, while those at the corners are verbalized by flows that involve a backup module.

Overhead openings in the focal point of each encased space and at the finishes of the dissemination ways strengthen the vertical measurement of the format, furthermore intensify the lake’s sparkling water. Less formal, the base floor house the more regular elements of the local domain; its square arrangement partitioned into four equivalent quadrants is curtailed in the north corner, a subtraction that serves as a visual and useful alternate route between the upper yard and the tidal pond’s edge.

As in Matila Ghyka’s depiction of a scene as a ‘crystallization of a contention of powers’, the whole structure is a stony mass in obvious rest. The four dividers of the yard go about as Vierendeel supports laying in parity on the platform. Practically as though they were diffusing the anxiety, the solid surfaces have the coarse composition of fine formwork sheets with a weakened dark patina.