Rodrigo Valenzuela Jerez from (E)studioRO has projected SP House, located very close to the sea, quiet and away from the bustling noise of the city. Located in Tunquén, in the Valparaíso Region, on the central coast, one of the few Chilean coastal regions that have not been developed real estate, where man has not left a mark, it is a place to find tranquility.

The project designed as a place to rest on vacations and as a future place of residence for a family is located in the middle of nature, a simple house that responds to a simple volumetry in line with the environment presents a different interior distribution of spaces that generates a warm and attractive atmosphere.
The SP House designed by Rodrigo Valenzuela Jerez collects the client's ideas and knows how to capture them elegantly and concisely. A cheap house, easy to build and with a gabled roof, a house with great general comfort and a very high technical quality added to the design of the interior spaces, moving away from the conventional model of housing.

The project on the outside is shown as a permeable space with the outside, the 5,000sqm plot where it is located in a fundamental piece of the project, therefore, determining that the house is permeable will be something main in the design, the south front is It is found in its entirety with openings for the entry of natural light and to be able to observe the views that the house offers.

The house sits on the ground on a structure of wooden piles that rise throughout the elevation of the project. The rest of the enclosure is covered by a vertical arrangement of green wooden slats. However, the interior, also covered with vertical wooden slats that presents double-height spaces where attics appear, generating private rooms, produces a different conception of space. To access these attics, they are made using yellow metal ladders that can be understood as a sculptural piece.
 

Description of project by Rodrigo Valenzuela Jerez

The brief 

My friends Mr S and Ms P wanted a cheap, easy to build beach house with a triangular shaped roof.

Their idea was to spend weekends and vacations there, with an intent to possibly move there at some point in the future. They liked the idea to invite family and friends to stay over and who knows, maybe one day they would have kids and it would certinaly be nice for them to bring their friends to play at the weekend. They didn’t know what would happen in the future, but then, who does? We started designing the house and suddenly the family grew. 

Was it cheap?

The house was relatively cheap for Chilean building standards. Yet, of course not as cheap as the owners would have hoped. The construction cost was approximately 950 USD/sqm.

It was as usual necessary to negotiate between technical quality, general comfort and costs. Thus, the project for us was mostly about constantly assessing how to achieve a construction that is different from ordinary vernacular, but with resources typical of it. For each element the question arises, and for each question we were eventually challenged to find a way to decide.

Was it easy to build?

Despite (or precisely because of?) the house’s rather simple appearance, the construction process had a few challenges. The team (owners/contractor/architect) were constantly reviewing the original design and discussing adjustments that could ease the construction process and/or the future house’s maintenance.

A timber structure supports the house from the outside. Standard materials were used as the envelope: painted fiber concrete, aluminum windows frame and an asphalt membrane on the roof. However, there was particular concern with the installation of a continuous layer of insulation around the house for thermal comfort. The interior is mostly cladded in knotless pinewood, drywalls are used in the smaller rooms and porcelain tiles in bathrooms. A 40 cm level is marked changing the direction of timber battens throughout the house. 

And what about the Triangular Shaped Roof? 

That was the easy part, however the owners also wanted to avoid structural elements in the interior space for maximum freedom. To achieve this we added a couple of exterior cantilevered beams over both long façades. On top of that, the beams function as eaves and also establish the house’s form.

Spaces & sizes not programs 

The overall configuration of the house is made up of a large open floor plan split by two interior modules placed perpendicularly. Each module has a small room and a bathroom inside and produces an upper loft area above it. 

The house can be simply read as two large spaces, two small spaces, two upper loft areas, and two bathrooms that allow for a number of potential uses. This is the way in which the design responded to the initial indeterminacy of the program – futureproofing the building?

If they want, they could set up a huge bedroom and include the other rooms as walk-in closet + en-suite bathroom. They could sleep in a small room and use the larger room as a home-office, a library or a children’s playroom. They could also place the home-office (if they want to have one) at one of the upper loft areas. Leave the other loft area as guest room… etcetera. 

The hypothesis is that programs are primarily defined by objects, hence just by moving furniture and appliances they will be able to reprogram the different spaces. 

Analytically 

My participation in the project probably made the house a little more expensive and a little more difficult to build. In exchange, I contributed to the realization of a house open to future changes in program. A fair exchange?

Optimistically

Finally, they got a beach house at a reasonable price, and with the triangular roof they had in mind from day one. Their daughter was born before the house was finished, so we decided to remove both stairs’ first step and leave the upper loft areas out of her reach. They can now work on their garden and let their lives take over the house.

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Architects
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Design team
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Principal architect.- Rodrigo Valenzuela Jerez. Project architect.- Juan Pablo Valenzuela Ardiles. Drawings.- Valentina Varela.
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Collaborators
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Structural engineer.- DEC Ingenieros - Marcelo Sepúlveda. Electrical engineer.- Ingeniería JM.
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Builder
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UNIH Arquitectura & Construcción - Eduardo Hirose.
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Area
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GFA.- 120 sqm. Site area.- 5000 sqm.
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Budget
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950 USD/ sqm.
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Dates
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Design.- 2017. Completion.- 2019.
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Location
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Tunquén, Region of Valparaíso, Chile.
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Photography
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Rodrigo Valenzuela Jerez (1978) graduated in Architecture from Universidad de Chile (2003), Master of Fine Arts with a Major in Visual Arts from Universidad de Chile (2011), and Master of Science in Advance Architectural Design at Columbia University (2014). 

He has been awarded with a Fulbright Scholar grant (2013), honored with a Scholarship from the Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT-Chile) (2013), and a Scholarship from the National Fund for the Development of the Arts, (FONDART-Chile) (2008).

From 2014 works in architecture through (E)StudioRO(E)Studio Futur@ and RVJAA.

Between 2005-2013 he co-directed Murúa-Valenzuela Architects. The firm was focused on public architecture. Some international recognition of the studio work includes an invitation to participate in the MoMA- Young Architects Program in Santiago (2013), Grand Prize in the XVII Biennale of Chilean Architecture received for the co-design of Licantén Public Library (2010). 

Rodrigo Valenzuela Jerez has been, adjunct professor at Columbia University (2014-2015) visiting professor at Universidad de Chile (2012&2019) and assistant teacher in Universidad Diego Portales (2008-2010) in Santiago, Chile. Currently he is an associate professor and studio coordinator at Universidad de Las Americas Santiago, Chile (2017-2020).
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Published on: December 10, 2020
Cite: "Escape from chaos, a refuge near the sea. SP House by Rodrigo Valenzuela Jerez (E)studioRO" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/escape-chaos-a-refuge-near-sea-sp-house-rodrigo-valenzuela-jerez-estudioro> ISSN 1139-6415
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