Casa El Boldo: House in the Forest

Designing Matter, Low Density, Project, SUN Arquitectos, Territory and mobility

Architecture&nature, Chile, Comfort, Concrete, Designing Matter, Forest, Housing, Landscape, masonry, Natural Park, Project, Skylight, Stone, Structure, Territorial Approach, Timber, Topography, Valparaíso

The project is located in front of Zapallar bay, 169km away from Santiago de Chile, in the region of Valparaiso. An isolated house in the forest at 450m above sea level, on the southern slope of the hill where El Boldo Park, a sclerophylls’ forest, is located. The thick stone walls modify the extreme topography into liveable levels, achieving two horizontal planes, in between the forest, which characterize the territory and root the architecture in an intimate relationship with its environment and the forest that surrounds it. Its complex variety of materials is balanced and related. Each quality and its contrasts are accepted. Its conditions are moderated. The appearance between concrete, wood, stone, and marble, all noble and long-lived materials, is matched. And they contrast its rustic and warm persistence with glass and steel, materials that give a contemporary look, an innovative and mixed face to the outside.