Villa La Carmela / DOSarq + BUDA + BEarq

closed

The place responds to the one idealized by our father, a 11840 ft² plot, with an irregular profile and favorable topography, located at the meeting point of a slope with the river and close to leafy pine and eucalyptus forests, located in the middle of a narrow valley the outskirts of the city, just where the mountain range bends down to give way to the afternoon sun.Three types of patios with particular characteristics and intentions; the private, present in each unit, surrounded by masonry or landscape on three sides and, projected towards the personal space by just one of its planes; the common courtyard, created by the arrangement of volumes, with 2 parallel planes first and then tangent, projected onto the landscape, planes with discreet openings that prudently anchor them to the private space; and, the most modest of all, but essential, a void attached to the common patio on the geometric axis of the project, with three planes sharing space with the grandfather's house and, one arranged towards the center, the coffee patio, the common place where the family will gather.Text description provided by the architects.The commission comes from our father, a person in his seventies who learned to enjoy solitude with a good coffee, and to feel fulfilled when he can share it; he proposes a rural complex with 4 independent houses, but with common spaces, he also adds, anticipating his grandchildren, versatile and progressive areas; he will call this town by the name of the love of his life, Carmela.The construction should be impeccable and, together with the program, support progressivity; materials that have characterized our work before being used in the villa, exposed concrete, steel, and handmade ceramic brick without plaster, faithful to our philosophy that promotes the honesty of the material as a formal resource; a concrete basement on which white masonry with imperfect textures is arranged, then topped by heavy concrete slabs or light gabled roofs without eaves, the voids are occupied by modular steel locksmiths and the niches filled by fine carpentry.To solve the antagonistic program, we claim a resource that we had already used in other projects, the patio understood as a void with the ability to link or disconnect the interior spaces to which it is due.The arrangement of volumes guarantees the program and accommodates itself to the uneven contour of the land, the grandfather's house folds parallel to the ravine and, isolated by a central void that we will later call the common courtyard, they are arranged side by side and parallel to the via the homes of her three children.Grandfather's house, with everyone nearby when they so wish, as before, but with individual spaces where they can retire at the end of the day; four houses that converse without arguing, articulated and separated by the same resource.