Sol89 organizes the house through a gradient of spaces that facilitate a double reading, public and private. The first area is the entrance from the street, which accesses the first patio against the light, reaching an open longitudinal gallery. An always interesting interior landscape formed by a sequence of classic places: street-hallway-patio-gallery, which facilitate differentiated access to the home and workspaces.
From the other end of the gallery, around the main patio, the house located on the first floor is accessed, reaching half the total length of the house, separating the private area sheltered by the other patio. Thus, a diagonal emerges that hollows out the house, from the patio by day, fluid and articulated, open to the street.
The existence of the dividing wall of the adjoining four-story building gives rise to a pergola that covers the stepped central void to give more privacy. A last exterior room culminates the house, a half-built place, with floor and walls, with structure and holes, without carpentry, or roof.
Two patios and a half house by Sol89. Photograph by Fernando Alda.
Two patios and a half house by Sol89. Photograph by Fernando Alda.
Description of project by Sol89
"The patio like this is the center of the house in every way. It is like a stove that distributes heat and air. In it, there must always be a corner in the sun and one in the shade. Through its walls, you can see the light of day turning and the night entering with its mystery. The patio is a symbol and a memory of that little piece of paradise that cannot be renounced and remains intact in the soul."
Maria Zambrano, Aurora.
The starting conditions —a plot that is deeper than it is wide with a single frontage open to the road lined with generous acacia trees, a house that does not need to exhaust the buildable area or the heights that the regulations allow, and the desire to differentiate the workspace from the domestic habitat of its owners—suggest understanding the non-constructed areas as a matter of a project that configures an expanded and complementary house to the interior house. Thus arises a succession of concatenated voids in sections capable of articulating the different degrees of privacy claimed, of providing extension spaces to the interior rooms, and of orienting the rooms towards patios, guaranteeing protection against street noise, cross ventilation, and the natural lighting that comes from the south located at the bottom of the plot.
Two patios and a half house by Sol89. Photograph by Fernando Alda.
They, a couple with a little girl, require spaces to work from home, suggesting prolonged stays throughout the day between concentration and rest, which encourages thinking about the need for relaxation transits between both activities. The house thus acquires a double reading between the public and the private, which we must know how to qualify. The first area that is accessed from the public road will be a place of lost steps in which to offer a gradual entrance that, culminating in a first backlit patio, reaches an open longitudinal gallery. This space, even more, public than private, from which we reach the staircase of a section around which the house pivots, is a threshold that will allow differentiated entry to the home or to the workspaces demanded through the sequence street-entrance-patio-tunnel, catalog of intermediate places of the best southern tradition that make up an interior landscape.
From the other end of the gallery, around the main patio, we access the house located on the first floor, disembarking in half the total length of the house, separating the night area sheltered by the more private patio. Thus, a diagonal emerges that hollows out the house, from the patio by day, fluid and articulated, open to the street and oriented towards the interior of the plot, through a terrace that extends the living room to the exterior, expanding the section of the central void. On the first floor, and even the patio at night, hidden and private, jealous of the street and the daily tumult.
Two patios and a half house by Sol89. Photograph by Fernando Alda.
The existence of the dividing wall of the adjoining four-story building suggests the need for a pergola that covers the stepped central void to veil the presence of this powerful canvas. The prolongation of the interior beam structure through the rhythm inferred by the pergola reinforces the presence of the patio at the heart of the house. The patio becomes a dense and vibrant place that we imagine will reflect domestic life: the children's play on the lower level, the meeting and reading on the terrace, the daily coming and going through the corridor and the stairs, the green pergola, the change in light throughout the year…
A last exterior room —half room, half patio—complements the house. It is a half-built place, with a floor and walls, a structure, and holes, without carpentry or a roof. This delimited void finishes off the sequence street-entrance-patio-tunnel, ending the route against the tops of the voluminous acacia trees on the street and looking back at the city.
